$10,000 a month for Secretary?

Secretary General of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Mohammed Sanusi

“I am lucky to have left Nigeria early” – Jay Jay Okocha.

The-above are the words of one of the greatest players in Nigeria’s football history. Austin Jay Jay Okocha’s words speak volumes, particularly, directly to the state of football development in Nigeria.

He said that it was Europe that honed the natural talent that he had when he left Nigeria for Germany at the age of 18. Without the facilities and coaching personnel in Europe, he would never have attained the heights in football that he did.

Think about it. Like Nigeria’s crude oil, Nigeria’s football ‘raw materials’ have to be taken to abroad for refining, when everyone agrees that the route to prosperity lies in refining them domestically.

According to Okocha, the answers to Nigeria’s football development are simple – good facilities and grounds for training players and for playing matches, experienced and knowledgeable coaches, and a domestic football system of strong clubs and leagues that can breed and churn out great players even if the migration to Europe does not seize.

Brazil got it right. The country invested in excellent training and competition facilities, proper training of coaches within their university system, and the organisation of good domestic leagues. That’s why the annual flood of some of Brazil’s best young talents to Europe does not adversely affect their domestic football, because there is a good production line of great players within Brazil to sustain development.

In Nigeria, from 1995 particularly, circumstances, gradually and steadily, introduced corrupting influences into football when inexperienced new administrators came into sports administration. Football was