Renowned sports facility expert and consultant Ebi Egbe, has explained why it has been difficult for home based players to make the Super Eagles team.
Egbe, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Monimitchelle Sports facility company, stated that the standard of football in the local league is poor and not good enough to match the high standards of the foreign based players.
“I tell you, the players in the local leagues are half baked. That’s why no foreign coach would take the risk of playing a home based player, for instance in the defence line or even to lead the attack of the team.
” You would see that any local based footballer who has been scouted or deemed talented would be transfered firstly, to an African country, particularly, North Africa for him to horn his stuffs. From there they would move him to Europe,” he said.
He said that some of the reasons for the poor quality of the local players includes bad playing facilities and pitches, adding that when a player plays regularly on rubber synthetic pitches, they not only suffer wear and tears to their ligaments and other parts of their bodies, the irregular and unnatural movements of the balls would militate against quality and eye- catching performances.
Egbe advised government and stakeholders to invest in top class playing surfaces such as the 100 percent hybrid pitches with zero undulated surfaces. Adding that to get quality performance, the players need to be able to exhibit their talents on pitches that are beautiful to the eyes and health friendly.
Monimitchelle has constructed several world class football pitches including the Enyimba International Stadium, Aba, Kakanda stadium, Katsina, Aper Aku stadium, Makurdi, Onikan Stadium, Lagos, amongst many others.
