'I must be worried' - NFF boss concerned about Nigeria's youth teams recent unsatisfactory results

The Nigeria Football Federation is set to overhaul youth football development, with new programs aimed at identifying and nurturing young talent across the country. 

President Ibrahim Musa Gusau has detailed plans to strengthen the foundations of Nigerian football from the U15 level.

Gusau expressed concern over the current state of youth development, saying, "I must be worried because the future of football start from there." 

He emphasized the positive steps being taken, noting, "The good news is that the NFF and FIFA come up with the program, which is talent development hunt, basically for U15 young boys and girls. 

"We are very much high on it. If you remember last year our U15 boys were in Morocco to play some friendly matches.

"Even this year they’ll go and play as well. So we are trying to start fresh. It’s not going to be in the near future."

The NFF president highlighted that youth selection processes will change significantly. 

"It’s not going to be business as usual. When we are talking about U17, we start talking about calling camping that you can see 1,000 boys—no, that team must be done from level 14, so that we are monitoring these boys up to that level. Very soon, all that will change."

Gusau stressed Nigeria’s prominence in youth football: "It's something that we must be worried about, because Nigeria has been one of the best youth footballing nations in the world, not only in the continent. 

"Therefore, it becomes absolutely very necessary for us to do something about it."

He explained the importance of providing a supportive environment for young players: "One of the key things is for us to have an enabling environment that we can give more time to these boys, keep them together, and make sure they can face the challenges of competition. 

"When you go to most of these countries, they have a lot of youth development programs. 

"In Abuja here we can not get it. It’s one of the essence we are building this kind of hostel. 

"So that in every holiday we have the opportunity to call them, put them in one place, and make sure they have the training they deserve. They are supposed to have."

Gusau also emphasized long-term engagement and understanding for young players. 

"It’s one of the key reasons why we are much interested in putting up this hostel, so that we can have enough time to train our players, especially youths, because they need more time to understand themselves and the philosophy that the coach wants them to play. 

"You cannot take them like the Super Eagles. It doesn’t work like that."

On talent identification and selection, he said, "We are working hard on a program, in collaboration with FIFA, which, by the grace of God, in the near future we don’t need to be calling young boys everywhere for camp or screening before we can come up with a team. 

"This program we are expanding into the zones, whereby we invite every young child to come, and from the zone we try to select. 

"That’s how we come up with the under-15 national team. If we can do that and every holiday we bring them to Abuja  to monitor them, we cannot say that we don’t have a team we can rely on. 

"We are very much concerned, and by the grace of God, we are going to get out of that very soon."

Wale Adejumo

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