New Telegraph

CAF Cup: We must work on our league calendar – Odigwe

Confederation cup
  • Plateau United, Kwara United coaches lament ouster

 

Technical Adviser of Insurance of Benin, Monday Odigwe, has said there is a need to work on the Nigeria Professional Football League calendar to help our club sides play on the continent after the elimination of all four clubs from the CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup.

Remo Stars was the first to be eliminated in the CAF Confederation Cup while Rivers United and Plateau United at the weekend lost out in the Champions League same as Kwara United in the Confederation Cup. One common thing was the fact that they all lost to teams from the Northern part of Africa, Morocco and Tunisia.

Rivers Utd lost 6-0 to Wydad Casablanca of Morocco while Plateau Utd were eliminated by an away goal by Esperance of Tunisia as the aggregate ended 2-2. For Kwara Utd, the one goal conceded in Lagos ended their campaign after their opponent, Berkane of Morocco defeated them 2-0 at home for a 3-3 aggregate scoreline.

“We should pick how we want to play and all our teams will take that form, if you invite any players to the national team, they will have the basic knowledge of the kind of football to play,” he said on a radio programme monitored in Lagos.

“The welfare of the players is also very paramount to the game, that’s what the North African teams have been doing and unless we also start to do the right thing, they will continue to dominate us, they are not better than us. “Nigeria players naturally are more gifted than the North Africans, that’s why you see any player from here who goes out there to those clubs, always excel.

“We need to pay attention to the quality of our football, let’s have a proper  calendar, not when we don’t even know when the league will start, that’s another problem for our teams because as we speak now, the season has started in all other countries, but we don’t even know when our own will start.”

Meanwhile, Plateau Utd coach, Fidelis Ilechukwu, has described his team’s elimination as a painful one, while adding that nobody at the CAF is fighting for Nigeria’s clubs.

He added: “It was so painful, we are not happy the way the team was booted out of the Champions League, we were very close to making history but at the end of the day, it wasn’t meant to be. “I don’t want to talk about officiating because I am not a referee, not CAF, but it looks like we don’t have anybody in CAF. We are out of the Champions League, so painful.”

Also, Kwara United forward, Paul Samson, also blamed officiating for their elimination as he said the officials didn’t allow them to play their game

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