ABUJA – Shaibu Amodu, a former Head Coach of the Super Eagles, has urged the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) to sustain a regular training programme for indigenous coaches in order to sustain its grassroots football programme.
Amodu made the call at the ongoing CAF C-License Coaching Course for Nigerian coaches taking place at the package `B’ of the National Stadium, Abuja.
He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday that grassroots football would be the greatest achievement of Nigerian football if the programme was strictly followed.
“To say about achievement is a different thing, but clearly this is the objective.
“To achieve it now will depend on how administratively we are able to utilise these group of personnel, who I think after this course will have a lot of knowledge based on how to nurture the talents that are abound in this country.
“First and foremost, it’s a responsibility of the football federation to ensure that most coaches who are at the grassroots level to the club level are certified through this programme.
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“When you do that, you can begin to count on the fact that this programme will meet its desired objective.’’
According to him, the programme will manifest in the national team once it is meticulously followed from the grassroots level.
“If you do it at the grassroots level, it metamorphoses into the national teams because most players trained out from the grassroots development programmes will be nurtured properly.
“If you nurture them properly, the national coaches, players’ selectors will be able to get reservoirs of players to select from, and then, we will begin to see the era of talented players.
“In fact, that is the main objective.’’
NAN reports that 81 participants, including Tunji Babalola, a former Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Premier Legue (NPL), are participating in the coaching course.
About 10 instructors, including a former Super Eagles coach, Adegboye Onigbinde and a former NFA Secretary-General, Bolaji Ojo-Oba, are the resource persons for the programme.
Others are Kshimawo Laloko, the Pepsi Football Director, Linus Mba, a CAF and NFA instructor on refereeing, as well as James Peters, a former NFA Assistant Director of Technical.
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