Stop recycling deadwoods, Bolus charges colleagues

• Raises alarm over elongated break in NPFL

Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries (MFM) FC Coach, Tony Bolus, has urged his colleagues to invest their time in scouting for fresh talents from the grassroots, saying the yearly recycling of players from club to club has been the bane of the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL).

Bolus, who lamented the elongated break in the Nigerian football system due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, said the inability of coaches to discover fresh talents from the grassroots has resulted in the recycling of players from one club to the other every season in the domestic league.

He said the practice has affected the development of the league and also stunted the process of identifying more talents in the NPFL.

He charged football stakeholders to start working hard to correct the anomalies on grassroots football development in Nigeria, stressing that the inability to unearth hidden talents also affects the Super Eagles.

“Recycling of players in the Nigerian league is another factor that affects the progress of NPFL and football in general in the country.

“How do you expect a league to excel or more stars to be discovered to play for the Super Eagles when same players are recycled by different clubs every season and new stars are not discovered to replace them.

“A particular player in Nigeria can go round different clubs like from Enyimba to Heartland, from there to Lobi Stars on to Kano Pillars for years and even come back to where he left and still be treated as a top footballer.

“The problem is that these days we don’t have credible grassroots coaches as in the past. If more quality players are discovered from the grassroots, the habit of recycling the same players in the league will reduce because of the abundance of talents to take over from the established ones when they leave a particular club,” he said.

Another issue bothering the MFM coach is the continuous break in the NPFL due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

He said the elongated break ahs made it impossible for clubs to plan their season, adding, however, “there is nothing we can do about, as it is a health issue which must be handled for our safety.”

According to Bolus, “When some of my players arrived camp before they were asked to go back home, I was surprised that most of them have now gained much weight which is not good. This will be a big problem for me to handle because we will not have enough time to put them in the right shape before games in the football season resume.”