Speaking to Trustsports yesterday at the team’s training camp in Abuja, the coach noted that having played at least twenty friendly matches with the football academies, he has come to realize that they are cannot boast of players who are within the stipulated age for the championship.
He explained that most of the players in the academies are far above the age requirement for the championship because the owners of the academies recruit players based on what they have been told by the players’ parents and guardians.
The coach disclosed that the academies do not have a clear cut categorization of the players, a development which has made it hard for one to find an academy that boasts of having its record of U-12, U-14 and U-17 players.
“We have played most of the football academies as a team. I was able to discover the players we played against as old as our players, if not older. If it were to be the academies that we can say this is the record of our academy, this one is U-12, this one is U-14 and this one is U-17, then they could bring their U-17 for us to have a match then one can say we would be able to pick from there but the story is not so.
“Unfortunately, each time we played against the academies, they offer the equivalent of what we have in terms of age. Then you find it very difficult to select”.
He said not long ago some players from football academies in Lagos and Ibadan were sent to him but when he took a look at them, he found out that they were far older than the players in his camp.
The coach said it is only those who are not well informed that stay from afar and continue to talk about academies as if they are the solution to the present problem of the team.
