Siasia berates LMC, NNL, Club Owners over league crisis

Former Super Eagles Coach, Samson Siasia yesterday berated officials of the Nigeria National League (NNL), League Management Company (LMC) and Club Owners over their inability to resolve the crisis rocking the country’s league, which has suffered several postponements since the 2017/2018 season ended three months ago.

Siasia blamed the NNL, LMC and the Club Owners for the crisis that has stopped the league from kicking off as scheduled, saying, “what is happening in our league is pathetic.”

According to Siasia, “Our league did not end the way it should, and a winner was declared. That’s not how it is done in the developed world; even though we are in a developing country.

“Our football has climbed to the level it is currently because of the players’ passion, and not our administrative know-how. We are yet to get the quality administrators that will take our football to the desired level. The era we had good football administrators, they were not allowed to perform.

“I remember South Africa came here soon after the apartheid to learn football administration, and see the level they have attained. Very soon, we will start sending our would-be administrators to South Africa that we taught how to administer football to learn from them. Are we progressing in that regard?”

He advised operators of the country’s league to sit up and ask questions, if they did not know what to do.Siasia expressed surprise at the decision to promote four teams without relegating any.

“I am not criticising them, but as a former football player, and a coach of national teams at various levels, I believe I have some input to make at this stage. We need to let them know when things are not going well,” he said.

The former Super Eagles’ striker is also not impressed by Nigerian clubs’ managers, saying the horrible environment in which the players operate is the reason they can never play to the highest level.“How can players park themselves in a bus and travel for 15 to 20 hours to match venue and you expect to get the best from such players? “That is  why we will continue to depend on foreign players to execute national team assignments,” he said.