Chairman Association Proprietors Football Academies of Nigeria, APFAN, Lagos chapter,Prince Tunde Alade has confessed that many of football academies in Lagos are substandard because they fail to meet the requirements.
Alade disclosed this while reacting to the number of football academies spring up everyday not only in Lagos but Nigeria at large.
The chairman in a chat with Journalists in Lagos said there are requirements to set up a football academies but noted that 99 percent of the academies in Lagos fail to meet the requirements as a result of financial constraints.
“I will say this to let Nigerians know that our football academies in Lagos and Nigeria at large are substandard.We APFAN know the challenges our members are facing in order to set up football academy.If you want to set up standard football academy firstly,there should be standard field or aside field.Secondly, such academy must have medical team or clinic in case if a player or players sustain injury during the training session.Also the rules say for you to form an academy,there must be pyscologist or phisoterapist in the academy and another rules say the players must eat balanced diet to help their growth while training.
“In addition, a standard academy must organise workshop, seminar or clinic for players and coaches on a regular basis.And beside,a standard academy must employ certified coach or coaches to tutor these young lads to know the basic rudiments of the game.Let me just stop here because there are lot of requirements to set up academies but how many of our academies can meet these requirements,”he asked.
Alade said his association is working hard to ensure that their members fulfill 70percent of requirements and urged the non members who formed academies to register with the body.
“We are aware that academies spring up everyday in Lagos but the question is that how many of them register with us,”Alade asked.
