By Stephen Simon
The Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, and world football governing body FIFA have commenced a major review of Nigeria’s amateur football system as part of efforts to identify structural weaknesses and develop a stronger pathway for grassroots football development.
The two organisations are presenting the Amateur Football Environment Report of Nigeria at a two-day event in Abuja beginning Wednesday, with FIFA’s Global Football Development Division leading the exercise.
The presentation, being held at Sandralia Hotel in the Wuye area of Abuja, is the product of a multi-year analysis of Nigeria’s lower-tier football environment and is expected to provide an assessment of the structures, activities and challenges affecting amateur football across the country.
FIFA technical experts Amr Moheb, Amateur Football Analysis Manager, and Etienne Sockeng, Regional Technical Consultant with the FIFA Global Football Development Division, are leading the presentation and discussions.
NFF President Ibrahim Musa Gusau is expected to declare the programme open on Wednesday, with the first day focusing on the NFF Executive Committee, management and staff.
The stakeholders’ session on Thursday will bring together representatives of the National Sports Commission, Federal Ministry of Education, Nigeria Olympic Committee, National Institute for Sports and the NFF Technical and Development Committee.
Other participants are expected to include representatives of the Nigeria Football Coaches Association, school football organisations, domestic leagues, sporting media, the NFF Medical Committee, Referees Committee, junior national-team coaches, Beach Soccer and Futsal League officials, clubs and football academies.
The review comes at a difficult period for Nigerian football, following a series of setbacks involving the country’s national teams. The Super Falcons recently suffered an unexpected quarter-final exit at the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations and missed qualification for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup, prompting the NFF to order the team’s technical crew to step aside.
Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup has also intensified concerns about the country’s football development system, particularly the ability to identify, nurture and consistently produce players capable of competing at the highest international level.
The amateur football review is therefore expected to go beyond the performance of national teams and examine the foundations from which future players, coaches, referees and administrators emerge.
According to the NFF, the sessions are designed to provide stakeholders with an opportunity to interact with the FIFA technical experts, examine the findings and explore practical areas for collaboration aimed at improving the amateur game.
The report could also provide an important framework for addressing long-standing concerns over grassroots football development, school football, youth academies, coaching standards, competition structures and the transition of young players into professional football.
Nigeria has historically produced generations of outstanding footballers through grassroots competitions, academies and school programmes. However, concerns over inadequate facilities, inconsistent competitions and weak development structures have increasingly raised questions about whether the country is doing enough to sustain its traditional football pipeline.
The FIFA-NFF exercise consequently offers an opportunity for the country to examine those weaknesses systematically rather than treating each national-team setback as an isolated problem.
The outcome of the two-day engagement is expected to give Nigerian football administrators and other stakeholders a clearer picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the amateur game and provide recommendations for improving the system.
For a country with Nigeria’s football history and abundance of young talent, the central challenge is no longer simply finding talented players, but creating a reliable system capable of identifying, developing and protecting that talent until it reaches its full potential.
The FIFA-NFF review could therefore become an important starting point for rebuilding Nigerian football from the grassroots and ensuring that future success is supported by a stronger and more sustainable development structure.
