The Nigeria School Sports Federation (NSSF) has called on authorities concerned to ensure that the victorious Golden ‘Eaglets of Class 2015’ did the nation proud in the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Chile are not left without proper monitoring and nurturing for future glory.
President of the NIgeria School Sports Federation, Ibrahim Muhammad, while congratulating the victorious lads for their sterling performance of defending the trophy back-to-back and emerging as the most successful U-17 team in the world by winning the coveted trophy 5 times, said as products of schools sports, it is a clear message that schools remain the best breeding grounds for champions in all sporting endeavors.
Muhammad who hailed the heroics of the young lads described them as very good ambassadors of the country while at the tournament in Chile and called for a comprehensive plan to see that they are not wasted either through bad advice or wrong choices because of the sudden stardom.
“We in the School Sports Federation congratulate our Golden Eaglets who won the U-17 World Cup last Sunday for a record 5 times. We are particularly proud of them because they are all products of schools and this goes to show the enormous talents that abound in our programmes in school sports. It has clearly shown that the best place to channel energies to for sustainable sports development remain the school sports programmes where there is huge reservoir of talents to discover, groom and expose. Having done us proud, we call on the authorities concerned to rally round and ensure that they are well monitored and nurtured for more glory in the future for the nation. We also encourage the governments at all levels to take the development of school sports seriously because it remains the only viable way to sustaining talents hunt and grassroots sports development.” He said.
He said for example today, the basketball federation was already reaping from Milo Secondary Basketball Championships where products of our schools after being discovered in the programme have gone ahead to represent the nation well like the national U-16 boys and girls who represented the country on the continent and have booked places for world championships to be staged next year.
The Nigeria U-17 FIFA World Cup team coached by Emmanuel Amuneke last Sunday won the cup beating fellow Africans Mali 2-0 to lift the title for the fifth time after winning it in 1985, 1993, 2007, 2013 and this year. The team arrived the nation’s capital, Abuja to a rousing welcome on Wednesday, November 11.
