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African Cadet Championship: Onigbinde blames Eaglets' ouster on poor planning

By DIPO OKUBANJO

FORMER Super Eagles coach, Adegboye Onigbinde has attributed Nigeria's elimination in the preliminary rounds of the 2009 African Under-17 Championship to the dalitante attitude of the nation's football authorities to youth development.

Nigeria's Golden Eaglets, defending champion of the FIFA World U-17 Championship, were recently beaten 3-2 on aggregate by obscure Republic of Benin in the last qualifying round for the African tournament which holds next year in Algeria.

"Every Nigerian is not happy with what has happened,"said Onigbinde."What we should understand is that these days there are no longer minnows in football, what you give is what you get."

He continued:"I have warned times without number that we need to have a viable youth development programme. The idea of getting coaches to hurriedly put a team together when competition is very near cannot work all the time.
"We've managed to succeed with that kind of system in the past because this country is immensely rich in terms of talent.But what the loss to Benin has taught us is that we must plan ahead.Let's hope we learn our lesson."
Onigbinde cautioned the Nigeria Football Federation against sacking the Eaglets' coaching crew. Rather, he urged the federation to give adequate attention to the development of players, coaches and infrastucture.