Myckie Chukwuebuka
Honorable Khamisu Ahmed Mailantarki has voiced his concern and solution to bridging the gap between opportunities that the northern aspiring footballlers get compared to others elsewhere in the country, while describing Gombe State as the hub of many sporting talents especially in the area of football in the Northern part of the country.
The Ex House of Rep Member made this known when he spoke to Sports journalists in Lagos when he led Mailantarki Care Academy, his dream project to scouting program at the Legacy pitch, Surulere Lagos, which lasted for days.
The Footballing gentle administrator enumerated the reasons most players based abroad originates from other part of the country and stated his mission and vision to bridge that gap in terms of opportunities gotten and given.
“Well, when you look the statistics, you’ll realize football is a game of population, and if you look at Nigeria factor, you’ll realize from 95 – 99 % of players that are playing in Europe or any other league are from the southern part of Nigeria”.
“Looking at that, it is clear that something is wrong, maybe the method of recruitment or access to international scouting or because of huge challenges in security. So, it restricted getting players from the North. I thought of it all and looked at the statistics and I think something must be done and won’t rely on government to do it alone”.
He went further to reveal his plans for football in the North especially in Gombe State, which he proudly described the Brazil of the North.
“We have to involve ourselves in identifying those youth from the North so that we can all explore them and give equal opportunities as other part of the country. That is what really motivated me to form the Mailantarki football Care Academy in Gombe”.
“As we all know, Gombe is like the Brazil of the north. There are a lot of big players but they need opportunities to come out, we come up together with the former national coach, Manu Garba who is our technical director and some other people who are very active in the game of football to form this academy. We believe we have them (young players) in large numbers and they can be able to compete and bring out those that does not even have the opportunity to play in this kind of environment, He concluded”.