Football woes: Concerns as more soccer academies yield fewer stars

In most parts of the world, the proliferation of football academies is a great boost to their football as a steady stream of cadet stars keeps on nourishing their national teams. Conversely, that is not the situation in Nigeria, where substandard academies are adding to the country’s football woes. GOWON AKPODONOR writes that the depleting fortunes of the country’s junior and senior football teams are pointers that football academies are not delivering their mandates.

Most of the world’s best footballing nations are on top of the global game because they have developed a system of building from scratch.

Some of the best European nations, as well as South American and Asian countries like Japan and South Korea, are where they are in football today because of the constant supply of talent by their nurseries.

At the just-concluded Euro 2024 Championship, some of the best-performing nations featured teams with players, who in the recent past would have been playing for their junior sides instead of their senior national teams.

Lamine Yamal, who emerged as the best young player at the championship and was also rated as the most influential star in the title-winning Spanish side, marked his 17th birthday at the competition. Other such players groomed in academies in their countries that are becoming world-class stars include youngsters like Jamal Musiala of Germany, Niko Williams of Spain, Jude Bellingham and BukayoSaka of England, as well as, Ardar Gulan (Turkey), Kobbie Mainoo (England), Xavi Simons (Holland) and Nuno Mendes of Portugal that lit up the show in Germany.

In contrast, Nigerian academies have failed to provide players even for cadet national teams to the point that the country now finds it difficult to qualify for