Explains Saintfiet's employmentTHE Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) yesterday revealed that it has banned players in the national leagues from the national U-17 team, otherwise known as the Golden Eaglets.The NFF, which also said it has directed the U-17 team's coaches to ensure that only players within the age limit were invited to the team, added that its technical director, Tom Saintfiet, would help in ensuring that the country had no need to use over age players in youth competitions.Addressing journalists yesterday in Lagos, NFF President, Aminu Maigari, said the federation was determined to ensure that youth competitions helped the country in getting players for a formidable senior national team, adding that the era of winning junior championships by all means was over.'Saintfiet, who will be unveiled tomorrow (today), has a duty to develop, plan and train players from the grassroots for the national teams. Maigari said: 'He will recommend players for the national team coachers and advise them based on his discoveries from the grassroots. He will also work with the academies to ensure that they comply with the guidelines for operating in the country.'Earlier yesterday, NFF Acting Secretary General, Musa Amadu, revealed that some private bodies and states had initiated youth football competitions, which would enable the federation to fish out young talents for the various age teams in the country, which the technical director would work on when he assumes duty.Amadu, who also disclosed that the NFF has already put in place U-15 and U-17 teams, noted that Saintfiet would, upon resumption, take time to monitor the activities of the players invited to the various teams to ensure that no gap was created in their progression to the senior national team.He also disclosed that the federation would soon set up a database to document all information about the players, stressing that the era of age cheating among national players would soon a be a thing of the past. He added: 'We arefocusing on building a solid team for thefuture.'Experience has shown that we have not made proper use of all our players, who excelled at the youth teams, unlike what is done in some European countries like Spain, Italy and others, where the bulk of their present senior national teams were drawn from the team that participated in the past two world youth championships.
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