For the third consecutive time, Nigeria will not be at the CAF U-17 boys’ Africa Cup of Nations following the elimination of the Golden Eaglets at the WAFU B elimination championship. This means that for the third consecutive edition, Nigerian youngsters will not play at the FIFA U-17 World Cup, where future stars are displayed for all the clubs and other stakeholders to take note off.

At the WAFU B Championship holding in Burkina Faso, Nigeria was eliminated from the race at the group stage after holding Cote d’Ivoire to a 1-1 draw in their last group game. The draw came after a 1-2 loss to Niger Republic in their opening game on Wednesday.

Thus, the Golden Eaglets finished third in Group B, which was not enough to take the team to the semifinals and a shot at qualifying for the African U-17 AFCON.

Speaking on the latest “calamity” to befall Nigerian football, a former Super Eagles star, Emeka Ezeugo, said the country will continue to face such disastrous results until the Federal Government realises that patronage and corruption is killing the game.

He said: “Stakeholders must come together to rescue the game from scavengers feeding fat on it instead of proffering ideas for football development.

“We must hold a summit where those who know the game are allowed to speak to the ills of our football. Nigerian football cannot develop when we are only comfortable with ‘yes men’ who cannot point at the ills of the game even if such truths offend some people.”

He said the ongoing restructuring of the country’s football must go deeper than only changing the names of the people managing the game.

Also speaking on the Golden Eaglets failure in Ouagadougou, a former JIB Rocks defender, Theodore Chukwuemeka, said that going back to the structures that made Nigeria the number one youth football playing country in the world would help return the nation to the top of the game.

He said: “The Golden Eaglets’ problem is the root cause of the Super Eagles’ faiures in international football. I recall that in the 1970s up to the early 1990s, youth football was treated as important as the national team game such that such organistions as the Youth Sports Federation of Nigeria (YSFON) and the Pepsi Academy readily provided players for the national youth teams. That was how we won the inaugural U-17 World Cup with players sourced from YSFON with just a few months notice.

“The Pepsi Academy provided such stars as Mikel Obi, Chinedu Obasi, the Babangida brothers, Victor Nsofor and Solomon Abwo, among others, who helped Nigeria to silver medlas at the 2005 U-20 World Cup and 2008 Olympic Games.

“These organisations are no longer there to provide talents for the country. Now, everybody who can rent a field operates quack football academies that produce players that can hardly trap a football. We need a serious self-appraisal to address this problem.”

Apart from the Golden Eaglets, who failed to qualify for the U-17 AFCON, Nigeria’s women’s U-17 girls on Saturday in Rabat, Morocco, lost their opening game at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 1-2 to Poland.

With the opening day loss, Nigeria must beat Puerto Rico in their next Group B fixture tomorrow and play for a favourable result against defending champions, Korea DPR on Friday, to retain hope of qualifying for the second round of the championship.