Chris Green blasts NFF, says Nigeria’s talent pipeline is on life support

...Rescue Nigerian football now, he urges NSC 

By Oluwatobiloba Zeal-Adepetu Kumoye and Maxwell Kumoye 

 

 

Former Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) board member and current Rivers State Sports Commissioner, Barrister Chris Green, has delivered a scathing verdict on the state of Nigerian football development.

Green says the country’s talent pipeline is collapsing due to poor supervision of the domestic game.

Green, known for calling issues by their names, said national team coaches are “struggling to find genuine top-level talent” in the Nigeria Premier Football League because the league and its feeder system are adrift and unregulated.

According to him, the problem begins at the roots, football academies scattered across Nigeria operate without proper monitoring, licensing, or technical oversight, leaving coaches to sift through raw, unpolished, and often improperly trained players.

Green fumed. “Until the NFF steps up and properly regulates and supervises academies nationwide, we will keep recycling the same problems,” Green said.

“The national teams will continue to suffer because the development pipeline is weak.” “How can coaches find top-level talent when the entire development pipeline is unregulated?” 

In a country famous for producing raw diamonds, Green said the new reality is brutal, too many academies, too little supervision, and zero accountability. The result? Players arrive in the league half-baked, technically unrefined, and tactically unprepared.

Nigeria, a former factory of world-class talent, now risks becoming a scrapyard of wasted potential.

Green didn’t mince words. He said national team coaches are “searching blindly” for elite-quality homegrown players because the domestic league and academies have become a chaotic free-for-all, lacking structure, standards, and basic oversight.

With the Super Eagles preparing for 2025 AFCON in Morocco and the age-grade teams struggling for consistency, Green’s warning hits at the heart of Nigeria’s long-standing football dilemma, big dreams, but broken systems.

His message is blunt, fix the structure, or forget about producing elite, homegrown stars.

Green’s warning is unmistakable, if the NFF doesn’t rebuild the system, the Super Eagles’ future will be built on sand.

Meanwhile, Barrister Chris Green, has issued a thunderous call to the National Sports Commission, urging it to step in and save Nigerian football from capture by what he described as “a few individuals who have turned the sport into their private estate.”

In a very strong appeal, Green warned that the soul of Nigerian football is being held hostage by entrenched interests, insisting that the beautiful game cannot grow when power is locked in the hands of a select few.

According to him, the time has come to throw open the doors of football governance and allow capable, credible professionals to step in and steer the sport toward genuine progress.

Green argued that Nigeria’s football potential, widely recognized but poorly harnessed, will remain trapped unless bold institutional intervention happens now.

“We must free the game so it can breathe again,” he declared.

His message is clear: Nigerian football needs fresh leadership, transparent systems, and an environment where talent and competence not personal fiefdoms, drive decisions.

And for Green, the National Sports Commission must lead that rescue mission.