Nigeria Professional Football League boss, Davidson Owumi has called for more inclusion of home based players in the Super Eagles, if the national team hopes to make an impact in the African Cup of Nations and the World Cup qualifying contest.
Owumi urged the coaches of the Super Eagles to follow the example of late Coach Stephen Keshi, who had a fine blend of home-based and foreign-based players in his successful 2013 AFCON campaign and his second round finish at the 2014 World Cup.
The Super Eagles are currently struggling in the group C of the African World Cup qualifiers after playing a frustrating 1-1 draw at home with Lesotho and going to Rwanda to draw also 1-1 with Zimbabwe.
Owumi argued that it would be difficult for the Eagles to play against African teams with the foreign-based who are European football oriented.
“There is a big difference between African football and European football. You must have that idea to inject the home-based players, try them and see,” he said during a chat on Channels TV
“You don’t have a blanket cover and say the home based players are not good, because of that you can invite 40 players to come and play against Togo.
“The orientation of the Super Eagles handlers for the past six, seven years is oyibo oriented, export oriented.
“Nobody cares to look at the home-based players. The last coach that did it was Keshi and he got the reward.”
