Vice chairman of Lobi Stars of Makurdi, Mike Idoko, is not happy over the exclusion of home-based players from the Super Eagles 24-man list billed to face the Sierra Leone’s Lone Stars in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers on Friday.
Super Eagles will tackle their Sierra Leonean counterparts at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin City and target a win to consolidate their leadership of the group.
Idoko, however, has expressed his unhappiness with the total blackout of the league players saying their non invitation to the national team is portray the Nigeria Professional Football League in bad light.
“I am really surprised that we don’t have any home-based that can play in the Super Eagles. The question to ask is, ‘why are we even playing the league? That means we don’t even need to play the league at all if any of our players are not good to be called into the Super Eagles. It is just a matter of you bringing players from abroad. You will recall that the most successful coach we have had in the history of Nigerian league is Clemens Westerhof,” Idoko said.
He added, “He (Westerhof) went round the country and picked players and it took him five years to build that solid team that we had. I am really surprised maybe because we did not qualify for the CHAN and other regional competitions but I think the technical adviser (Gernot Rohr) should be able to give chance to some of the home-based players to encourage the league because for now, people will look at it and said this our league is not what it is supposed to be if we cannot get a single player in the Super Eagles line up in international competitions.”
