NFF, Take Development To The ‘ICU’

A specialized hospital section is called the Intensive Care Unit. This department provides critical care and life support for patients with life-threatening illnesses or injuries.

The unit attends to patients that require constant monitoring by working with advanced equipment like ventilators, and a multidisciplinary team of doctors and nurses for immediate intervention and overall support.

The objective of taking patients there is to revive them and make them vibrant again. For keen sports stakeholders, especially football, the year 2025 revealed a big setback in the country’s youth and grassroots development. No doubt it was a year of mixed fortunes, but it exposes a big dent in the development of the young ones.

Nigeria, with a record of five titles at the FIFA U-17 World Cup, now cannot qualify for the finals of the same event. The Golden Eaglets lost 2-0 to Ghana in the semi-final of the WAFU B tournament and thus failed to pick a ticket to the World Cup.

Nigeria has now failed to qualify for the second consecutive time following the failure recorded in 2023. And so, this deepens concerns about the country’s talent development structure, if any exists. In the U-20 cadre, the Fling Eagles managed to qualify for the finals but the team was humiliated in the quarter-final stage as Argentina defeated Nigeria 4-0. It was another setback in a competition the country is yet to win but has appeared in the final match twice.

Also, another team that should be showing the country’s developmental progress is the CHAN team. The team qualified for the 8th edition of the tournament but lost scandalously to Sudan 4-0 in the second group match. That defeat was the second after they also fell 1-0 against Senegal in the opener.

The Sudanese effectively sent Nigeria out of the competition. It was more disturbing as I learnt that the best of the country’s domestic league players were not assembled for the competition.

This is pure system collapse. Nigeria’s women’s U-17 team, the Flamingos, also made it to the FIFA World Cup only to crash out after losing 4-0 to Italy in the Round of 16. And so, the age-grade football structure is gradually crumbling and needs urgent attention of the Nigeria Football Federation before it is completely dead.

The scouts, youth department, technical committee and the overall executive body of the federation should take the age-grade football structure to the ‘ICU’.

That was the reason why I tried to explain the medical meaning of ICU. Nigeria’s youth football must not die because that is the future and so deliberate efforts should be made to REVIVE it now. The qualification system and all could be bad but the NFF must rise to face this challenge.

The age-grade teams, as I said in my write up last year, are the conveyor belts to the senior national team in both the male and female cadres while the CHAN and U-23 Olympics team also fall into this category.

An African country, Morocco, won the FIFA U-20 World Cup last year, the same event in which Nigeria lost in the last eight stage. The year 2025 also saw how the Super Eagles shamelessly lost the World Cup ticket.

After a very poor performance, there was hope again with the playoffs but this was bungled when Eagles lost to DR Congo in the final.

Imagine, DR Congo! Sadly, the NFF has written to FIFA protesting the eligibility of some players, a move which also belittles the entire country.

Nigeria should be qualifying outright for an event in which nine African teams will be at the finals. Too bad, too sad. Getting into the Super Eagles is just a one-way style which is combing the leagues in Europe, and that’s it.

No plan to either inject home-based players or some age-grade talents so that they can develop with the team. At least, Victor Osimhen and Samuel Chukwueze grew into the side from youth teams.

The fact that the Eaglets and the Flying Eagles are not doing well enough does not stop the federation scouts from getting the best in these teams to join Eagles.

It is important to however recall the amazing exploits of two women’s national teams – the Super Falcons and D’Tigress.

The Falcons won the Women’s AFCON for the 10th time while D’Tigress won AfroBasket for the fifth consecutive time last year.

President Bola Tinubu showered $100,000 on each player in the respective teams and also gave them houses and national honours. The two teams gave us the best sporting moments of 2025.