Former Nigerian International, Edema Fuludu has said expressed himself concerning the immediate future of the members of the under 17 squad. The U-17 team recently suffered defeat at the WAFU B in the semi finals, leaving their qualification for the U17 AFCON on a knife’s edge, as they await CAF’s ruling on participating teams.
Fuludu expressed his fear that some players would be preyed on by football clubs and would be taken away and nothing could be done regarding it. He added that any policy implemented against them would infringe on their human rights.
“There is no way you can stop them from being lured by clubs abroad, being lured by those who want to make money out of them so you cannot stop it. And if you bring in a policy that they cannot move. You are also infringing on their fundamental human rights of existence and the application to do a job and earn a living. Whether they are underage or not, they have that right”, said Fuludu in an interview.
He then highlighted that the majority of people who devote themselves to football are majorly the children of the low earning families, who see it as a financial escape if executed properly.
“The children of the rich don’t really play football. The children of the average class, the poor. They play soccer, they invest in it, they put their life in it because they know that it is one sure way out of poverty if they do it well”, Fuludu added.
He then sugggested that the players be kept in the loop, and be graduated to the higher ranks as they age, and attributed the loss to a lack of proper preparation or bad luck.
“But when it comes to the team itself as a whole, we did not qualify. I also believe that we don’t have to throw away the players immediately. There’s only something to do with them. You can mature into the other category of our national team, and we need to move them upwards. But qualifying through the bad door is a result of maybe lack of preparation, or ill-luck, essentially”, said the 54 year old.
The team are not done in Ghana just yet, as they will play a third place game against hosts Ghana, to salvage what is left for them in the tournament.
They will now await a verdict on how CAF plan to allocate the qualification slots for the next under 17 African cup of nations to see what comes next.
