Recently, Nigerian clubsides failed to make impact in the CAF organised competitions. The poor outing has placed a big question mark on the standard of the Nigerian local league, according to former Wikki Tourist Football Club chief, Patrick Pascal (MON).
Clubs like Enugu Rangers, FC Ifeanyiubah and Rivers United Football Club fell like packs of cards as they were ousted from the CAF Champions League and Confederation Cups.
Former Super Eagles midfielder, Pascal, has, however, attributed the early exit of Nigerian clubs in the continent to lack of commitment and dedication from the players and officials involved.
The Eagles coordinator said the calendar of events released by the Confederation of Africa
Football has not been favourable to Nigerian clubs in continental championships.
“Nigerian clubs are faced with wrong playing schedule when playing in the continental. The local league schedule should tally with the CAF calendar. This is one of the problems Nigerian clubs have been encountering. If any club is going for continental assignment, the League Management Committee and the NFF are expected to fix their calendar in conformity with CAF programmes,” Pascal said.
He also attributed poor standard of play, poor welfare package and low income to the problems affecting Nigerian clubs.
“There is no incentive to encourage the foreigners to seek greener pastures in Nigeria.
For instance, countries like South Africa, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia opened their gates to foreigners to play in their leagues because they have investors who are pumping adequate resources into their football. The invasion of foreign players add impetus to their leagues and made their football stronger. You can see that South African football is already developing; if not, they will not come to Nigeria and beat us with a largely home-grown team,” he said.
He stressed that the invasion of foreign clubs made English Premier League, Spanish La Liga and Germany’s Bundesliga tick.
“Although, we have some foreigners in our league, they are not enough because of the limited resources in the system,” he said.
He stressed that if Nigeria has a good league that is empowered by adequate resources, local players will no longer aspire to travel abroad. They will stay at home to develop the game.
