By Emmanuel Adigwe, Lagos
The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, says Gernot Rohr has been tasked to watch and select the best players from the Nigerian professional football league into the Super Eagles.
The Minister who stated this while speaking to Brila FM, said that Rohr has been mandated through his new contract to watch Nigeria professional football league matches, in order to select the best homegrown talents and process them into the senior national team.
He said: “I think it is right for him to have the option to the first refusal, the NFF worked with the Ministry to reviews his performance over time, but we find out some lapses. His contract has some new conditions and some of them are very stringent.
“The new conditions are already out there, to develop and pick our young footballers and to also watch our local league, Westerhof did that and he must make sure that he watches some these talents, pick them and process them to the national team.
“We just don’t want to sit there and collect some of the best twelve players in different clubs across and then take them to win a game and you think you have done your job as a coach.
“As a coach, you must help us identify and develop our local talents and that has been the strengths of our football and we have to return to that.”
He also added that the coach has been mandated to help the team do well in various outings.
“We also set some benchmark for him when it comes to AFCON and the World cup. He knows going forward, he must meet the right standards, because we will be watching very closely and ask questions,” he said.