The Chairman of the Federal Capital Territory Football Association, FCT FA, Adam Mouktar Mohammed, has said Super Eagles manager, Gernot Rohr’s preference for foreign based players is because they are more qualitative when compared with local players.
The Franco-German coach has been accused of undermining the talents in the domestic league as he hardly gives them the opportunity to fight for shirts in the Super Eagles.
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Consequently, most football analysts have continued to criticise and call on the former Gabonese national team coach to show more interest in players who are plying their trade in the Nigerian Professional Football League, NPFL.
However, Mouktar Mohammed in a chat with Daily Trust, on Sunday, said he believes Rohr does not have anything against local players but the quality he wants is not readily available in the Nigerian league.
He also called on those making appeals for inclusion of local players in the Super Eagles to be more realistic in their demands as he said it should not be based on sentiments and emotions.
“Demands for home-based players for the Super Eagles are most times done emotionally, but we must use evidence based solutions.
“You ask do we have the quality of players to step up?
“I don’t think we have the large pool in my personal opinion.
“A lot of rhetoric and demands from arm chair analysts but football is about results so you can’t gamble.
“There is a reason you see the coach going for players playing in the top leagues because he knows eyes closed they are quality, they are in a good shape psychologically and boast of exposure as well as experience at high level,” he said.
The FCT FA chairman who celebrated one year in office recently also submitted that for the NPFL to feed the Super Eagles with players and coaches, the league must change for the better.
“Let’s tell ourselves the hard truth, we have to have certain foundations, Systems and Processes to build our local leagues, coaches and players.
“For sure we all want to have more local participation of our coaches and players in the Super Eagles but then we have to do the needful first,” said Mohammed.
