MRI as blessing in disguise

On Tuesday evening Nigeria’s football governing body, the Nigeria Football Federation dropped 15 members of the Golden Eaglets preparing for FIFA’s U-17 World Championship to be hosted by the country in October this year.

The players, some of whom had been part of the original squad, assembled over a year ago by sacked coach, Alphonsus Dike, were dropped for failing the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) test carried out to ascertain their real ages. They were promptly replaced with players from the Pepsi Football Academy and the last edition of the NNPC/Shell Cup.

The dropping of the players came after weeks of silence by the football federation amid outcry for action after the failing of the test had been widely reported in the Nigerian media.

The federation’s decision came on the heel of serious pressure from the minister of sports and chairman, National Sports Commission, Sani Ndanusa, who had ordered the Sani lulu-led body to take action on the matter.

The federation was encouraged in its silence by Eaglets coach, John Obuh, who had stoutly opposed the test in the first place.

Two weeks ago, Obuh, commenting on the test said: “If they wanted to do this, it should have been carried out long before now, not when I am rounding up preparations for the competition. How am I now expected to screen new players in this short time and produce a good team? If these boys are removed now, Nigerians should not expect us to do well at the World Cup because it will be very difficult to identify new players and build a strong team in the time we have.”

Obuh’s worry did not cut any ice with some football faithful in Nigeria, particularly sacked former coach, Henry Nwosu who believes, the former Kwara United coach, has been cutting corners since he assumed the leadership of the squad.

Nwosu told NEXTSports last week: “When I was there, I had players that could execute the championship but unfortunately, he (John Obuh) dropped almost all of my players and left only two. I’m now surprised to hear them saying that the players failed the test so they left; he dropped them and started going for players who play in the league. How can you execute the job with those kinds of players?”

Timely intervention

Coming just weeks before the championship begins, it is understandable that Nigerians should feel some anxiety as to whether the country will be able to compete favourably when the event gets underway.

However, if we took time to assess the development, it would be found that this may well be the best decision the federation has taken in a long time.

This belief is based on my long held conviction that our football authorities need to re-evaluate its youth football strategy; that is if it has any in place.

In the last 25 years, beginning with our victory at the inaugural edition of the U-17 championship in 1985 (at the time it was an U-16 tournament); we have become fixated with winning the championship at all cost. This mindset has led the federation to engage in all manners of action, which were for the most part, illegal and embarrassing.

The most ignoble of these actions have been the fielding of players well over the specified age limit to the amazement of not only concerned Nigerians but also members of the global community. In 1985 for instance, I was over sixteen years old having left high school two years earlier, yet there were in the 1985 Eaglets squad at least three players with whom I grew up in Benin and who were about two to three years older than I was.

In retrospect that squad appears to be the youngest we have fielded since. With each passing edition we seemed to get more desperate and resort to hare-brained schemes. For the NFF, the slogan appeared to become ‘the older, the better’. And so we had a situation where a player, who had once been invited to the Green Eagles in 1981, suddenly showed up at U-17 Championship in Canada in 1987 as a member of the Eaglets.

Of course, playing against lads young enough to be his children, he shone like a million stars but promptly went to sleep later when playing for a European club, which had signed him on account of his ‘mesmerising’ play, he came up against his real age mates.

Cost of cheating

One of the reasons for the introduction of age grade football competitions by FIFA, apart from giving youth across the world an opportunity to come together to express their talents through interaction on the football field, was to give countries a platform through which to develop their game and ensure continuity. For nations elsewhere particularly in Europe and America this opportunity has been embraced and used to full effect. For Nigeria, the point has been missed and as successive NFA administrations cut corners, our football has become the poorer for it.

Many will recall that some of the finest footballers the world has seen in the last 10 years - Thierry Henry, Luis Figo, Iker Casillas, Ronaldinho, Carlos Tevez, Juan Riquelme, Lionel Messi and Landon Donovan, to name just a few, are products of age grade football competitions. Some, like Figo have remained active for nearly two decades.

By contrast, only Nwankwo Kanu and Wilson Oruma have evinced any form of longevity of the generations of Eaglets we have had since 1985. The effect of this development has been clear on our football fortunes. Whereas players from the U-17 and U-20 have made the transition to their senior national teams and have subsequently helped to improve their global rating, our Super Eagles, has for more than 10 years, stuttered on the global stage.

Since achieving some measure of prominence followings its impressive performance at the 1994 World Cup in the United States, the team has continued to groan under the dead weight of ageing players who cannot be replaced because the NFA has failed to groom younger players to take their place.

Benefits of MRI

It is clear that unless God sends Nigeria a miracle, our U-17 title won in Korea two years ago, is as good as lost. Even before the MRI hammer descended on the players, it was clear to discerning football followers in Nigeria that it was going to be an uphill task.

Up till Tuesday, when the 15 players were dropped, it was not clear what was really going on in the team’s camp. With three coaches handling the squad in one year and with new players repeatedly called up, the situation looked bleak, a sharp contrast from two years ago when coach Yemi Tella’s squad had already taken shape more than seven months before the World Cup. Now, Obuh has his job clearly cut out.

Despite the bleak prospect, the MRI test may well be a blessing in disguise if Lulu and his team at the NFF would be willing to take the decisions necessary to turn what appears to be a temporary setback into permanent advantage.

Luc Lagouche, a Frenchman, who teaches French at the Abuja French School and who has spent the last 13 years in Nigeria during which time he established a football club, Buffalo FC, believes the MRI may turn out to be the best thing to happen to Nigerian football.

Lagouche told NEXTSports two days before the NFF moved to clear off the over-aged players in the Eaglets, “I welcome the introduction of this machine. This machine will not only scan the bones of our boys but it will also help us to clean our conscience, open our eyes wide and change our vision of football.”