Coach dumps Nigerian pro-soccer in Waste Bin The retired Assistant Principal soccer coach with the Anambra State Sports Council, whose duties included fishing out potential football talents in schools and villages for upward refinery, was blank in his search for words to prospectively place what Nigerians refer to as "professional football today. The retired talent-hunter simply shrugged and murmmured, in a spirited effort to paint a picture of the leaness of the Nigerian pro-soccer in quality and approach: "What they are playing today, is amateurish both in scope and practice." "One had thought that, with time things would growth and improve. But the story is the same...as it was in the beginning, so it is now, and so it would remain life everlasting, if we decided to stay-off civilization. Now tell me, what is professional about the way the game is being played here today. "How can somebody say that he is a professional worker, but lives in the hotel or hostel with his mates. How can somebody claim to be a professional but, gets driven to his place of work (training pitch) in the company's (club's) bus everyday? "A professional person should be able to live on his own, marry a wife, breed children, maintain his family, pay his bills and meet other family obligations...but sadly, that is not the case with our so-called professional footballers. "Elsewhere in the world where professional football is properly practiced, you'll agree with me that, things are not done the way they are done in Nigeria. Over there, when a player is signed-on, the club could assist him get a place to live. This is not totally condemning the idea of being lodged in a hotel, but when it comes to a situation, whereby players have to be clustered in fours or fives in a hotel or hostel room, then, there is no professionalism. "The club on signing-on a new player, could have him housed in a hotel for a period of time, before he could be given an accommodation; just as is done in any other endeavour. This would allow him get his acts together and bring in his family and really get down to work as a professional. "Afterall, every worker wakes up in the morning and set out for his place of work. The same should be the tradition in professional football; not a situation in which, our players wake up every morning waiting for the club's bus to come and pick them up for training sessions...just as if they are school boys. This is why I maintain that, there is no professional football in Nigeria. "You can see how our boys out there in Europe face their business. You could see the differences in their approaches to the game on the club level and the national level. One is business...professional business, while the other, is not. "On the national level, they behave as if they are being begged to play while in their clubs, they beg to be fielded and the only way their pleadings could be given an ear, is by training hard and being professional in everything they do," argued Iweanoge, disclosed to nigeriasports.com that, he was one of those, who discovered Bolton Wanderers' and Super Eagles' captain, Austin Jay Jay Okocha. "Yes, Okocha was my boy at St. Patrick's Secondary School, Emene, Onitsha, in Anambra State of Nigeria. "He was a natural football player from youth. We saw and identified his talents; he could do anything and everything with the ball but, one thing he hated most, was training. I am not surprised that he is doing real fine now. He has climbed the ropes and today, he is mature because he has realized what it is to be a professional."
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