'He Can't Be Staying Home And Be Sleeping' - NFF VP Advises Rohr To Borrow A Page From Southgate

Second Vice President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Shehu Dikko has advised Super Eagles coach Gernot Rohr to borrow a page from England boss Gareth Southgate regarding monitoring of potential national team players.

The Nigerian Federation, including president Amaju Pinnick, have in the past failed in their bid to persuade Rohr to include Nigeria Professional Football League players in his plans for major Super League matches.

Dikko has made it clear that Rohr is gradually running out of excuses not selecting home-based players as one of the conditions in his new proposed contract stipulates that he must be domiciled in Nigeria.

"He has to be involved, if he's going to stay in Nigeria as it's being proposed, then what what will he be doing,'' Dikko said. 

"He can't be staying home and be sleeping, he has to go and watch the league matches.

"In Europe, you see every time they are playing top matches in the Premier League, you'll see the English national team coach (Gareth Southgate) there, so in Nigeria too we should do that.

"The coach could be shuttling, watching our matches here. His own players over there he can always watch them on television".

The League Management Company have aligned the Nigerian Professional Football League calendar with the European Leagues and Dikko has argued the local based players are more active than their foreign counterparts.

"National teams play at certain times but because the way the calendar was working before, most times you find out that our league was on break, so the coach cannot be taking players that are not active.

"Now we have aligned the calendar, so at least the players are active. Some of our players now are more active than the players in Europe because somebody would have played 15 games while somebody in Europe is playing only few minutes.

"It depends on how the coach sees them, it depends on whether the coach wants to give them a chance or not because they are as good as anybody.

"The moment we resolve the calendar which we are doing now, the players are available".

Rohr is expected to unveil his roster for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations against Sierra Leone in the coming weeks and it remains to be seen if players from the domestic championship are named in the squad apart from goalkeeper Ikechukwu Ezenwa.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel