FIFA licensed soccer agent, Olawale Onipede has hit out at Nigerian teams who will be competing in the continental CAF games following a delay in contact sports resumption from the Presidential Task Force, Sports Ministry while also blaming the teams lack of management structure and poor preparation hence enjoining people not to have their hopes raised high ahead of the upcoming season.
The multi-based agent said, “talking about Nigerian teams who will be competing in the continental CAF games (Champions league and Federation cup), Nigerian league clubs must wake up from their slumber and begin to rise up to the occasion but I must tell this to people because I don’t see them going far in the upcoming competitions because they lack adequate preparation and aside from that the structure of many of those teams are nothing to write home about.”
“They are not up to standard and not doing things the right way, don’t expect results as they say no pain, no gain.”
On if any Nigerian teams can pull a surprise, he said, “I can authoritatively tell you that if you fail to plan, don’t expect good results because many of those teams preparation towards the continental season have been so poor, apart from the pandemic that happened globally also contributed to that aspect and also our government didn’t allow contact sports in time and other teams from other countries have long started contact sports.”
“I must let people know that the North African sides which is dominated by Egyptian clubs, Moroccan league sides and you will see their structure including a solid management which is different from the government sports takeover here in Nigeria.”
“If sports is not managed by administrators, stakeholders, shareholders, or group of like minds, it won’t work because most times government makes decisions to favor themselves if we are very sincere and truthful to ourselves, dictation from power from above.”
“I don’t want people to raise their hopes high for this continental games coming up from the Nigerian club sides going because we have already seen the handwriting on the wall looking at Kano Pillars who brought in a foreign coach. How well does he know African football, has he ever been in the system, played continental games before, his pedigree, the newly recruited players and so many factors,” Onipede explained.
“Kano Pillars are a good team to me, I know the Chairman so am talking from experience of the relationship we have together, many things must be considered before you can go to competitions also with Enyimba that also will be participating. You can look at them, they have won the trophy sometimes back but the confidence and structure which they can use to build on their previous platform, it has been broken, and if it’s not, it’s now weak because there is nothing to really reckon about.”
“If you want to be the best, get the best and be consistent as this also applies to River’s United signing some couple of players, you ask yourself if they are going to measure up to the standard in the competition because there is something that we call team to gel, teamwork. Well, we hope for the best for them in the upcoming season along with other teams who will also join them,” he concluded.
