LMC counts gains of the NPFL U-15 Promises Tournament

The recently concluded Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) U-15 Promises Tournament has been described as the beginning of the process for a sustainable youth football culture in the Nigeria elite football league.

Speaking after the closing ceremony for the tournament won by Abubakar Bukola Saraki (ABS) FC, Harry Iwuala, Head of Special Project at the League Management Company (LMC enjoined participating clubs not to see the tournament as a competition but an activity to implement some of the lessons learnt during the tour of Spain at the instance of LaLiga last year.

“First, it was a platform to expose the young players but most importantly, it was an activity to get the NPFL Clubs to set up youth teams as opposed to their practice of what they call Feeder teams made up of largely players who didn’t fit into their main squad but not necessarily young players,” said Iwuala who represented the LMC Chairman, Shehu Dikko at the finals.

The LMC said part of the objective of creating youth teams in NPFL Clubs is to grow a club philosophy and raise a pull of young players that will continually replace the older ones.

“What we have done over the last one month is not basically to see which club is the best, we never set out to make them competitive because that will defeat the essence of having a stream of young players who will transit to the main squad. This was simply a beginning of a sustainable platform to identify local talents, harness them and offer them a career, he added.