Ex-international and team coordinator of the Super Eagles, Patrick Pascal has revealed that home-based players will always find it difficult to make the national team until the Nigerian Professional Football League begin to garner positive narratives from the media.
Recall that Enyimba duo of John Noble and Anayo Iwuala along with Abia Warriors defender Adeleke Adekunle were part of Rohr’s 23 man squad for the just concluded AFCON qualifiers against the Benin Republic and Lesotho.
Although John Noble and Adeleke Adekunle didn’t get the opportunity to make their debut, winger Anayo Iwuala was a second-half substitute in both games and made a good impression.
In the aftermath of the international break, Gernot Rohr claimed he was impressed with the qualities of the three home based players, but expressed fears over the possibility of further including NPFL players in his team ahead of the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
Speaking in defense of the 67-year-old Franco-German, Pascal told The Heritage Times during a phone call interview on Sunday that the NPFL is bereft of adequate attention from the media and as such, discovering and inviting home-based players to the national team proves a daunting task.
The Atlanta ’96 gold medalist opined: “To get the best from our Football Leagues we have to promote it to help it grow. Journalists play a crucial role in this. We must have positive narratives about our home-based players just like what we see in the English Premier League.
“We have good players in the Nigerian League but what seems to be lacking is promotion; we ought to promote the players that are good so as to boost their confidence.
“Not all journalists watch the Nigerian League, they just sit back at home and listen to the news while others travel around to witness the leagues. Criticizing our Leagues isn’t the best. The fastest and easiest way to discover a player is through talking about them; providing scorecards on their performance of players through coverage,” Pascal added.
Asked what he felt was responsible for the lacklustre performance by Nigerian clubs in Caf competitions in recent years, the former 3SC player cited crisis, which according to him is often triggered by government interference.
“If there are no crisis in the Nigerian league, investors would put money and as such we can buy players from other countries in Africa and this would build healthy competition among our own players and imported players, which will in turn grow our league, like what we see in Egypt and South Africa.
“During my time at shooting stars (3sc) of Ibadan, I played together with John Benson, who is a Ghanaian, so when you have players from outside it would make your League so strong.
“But nowadays, some state owned clubs do not pick players based on merit, as most players are being drafted into a team through the help of top government officials and when the coach decides not to honour their (government officials) request, he gets sacked.
“That is to say, if the League is devoid of government interference, there won’t be crisis and it will create room for investors to walk in and help grow our league,” Pascal noted.
Pascal, who was part of the three home-based players that made up the Atlanta 96 Olympic squad, also enjoyed spells at Turkey, Belgium and China. He won 11 caps for the Super Eagles between 1998 and 1999.
