Former Super Eagles winger, Finidi George has criticized the President of the Nigeria Football Federation, Amaju Pinnick, over his populating the Super Eagles with foreign-born stars.
The Ajax legend insists that the NFF boss should rather look for ways to develop the Nigeria Professional Football League local league is developed that it can produce top-quality stars that would make the country proud.
Pinnick has during his tenure brought in the likes of William Troost-Ekong, Ola Aina, Victor Moses, and Leon Balogun.
Though the former Delta State FA boss was unable to get Chelsea duo of Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori switch their international allegiance to feature for the three-time African champions.
And most recently, Pinnick was chasing another England youth international, Ebere Eze.
Finidi, though, is convinced there is a better way of doing such things.
“Now we are running after players that were born in Europe to come back and play for Nigeria. Who will train them for you? You want others to train players, and you wait to convert them to change their nationality so they can come and play for Nigeria? Why don’t you train your own here in Nigeria?” the 1994 AFCON-winning winger told The Vanguard.
“I am not saying Nigerians born outside should not play for Nigeria, after all, in the past, we had Reuben Agboola and others, but they were just one or two.
“All we need do is to work on our home-bred players.
“Not when you read about one player in the UK, and you will want to speak with the father to have him come and play for Nigeria.
‘’Put your house in order, and they would, on their own come. Let them be fighting to come.
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“If our league is good and our players are top class players, it is their parents who will be telling them to go join the Nigerian national team,” the former international concluded.
This article was most recently revised and updated 3 years ago
