Written by Bethel Kalu
Former Super Eagles forward, Kalu Uche says that Nigeria must fix the NPFL in order to give opportunity for budding talents to thrive. The former Super Eagles forward spoke shortly after Heartland Legends beat Enyimba Legends 2-1 in Aba.
Uche also spoke about what he intends to do after his retirement from professional football.
“Football is my life. Football is everything to me. Now I stopped playing professionally but I still play when it’s time to enjoy with friends.
Definitely, like I said, football is my life and I’m looking forward to start a new journey, definitely I’m going to continue in football. Of course, I’m going to give back to the community, the younger ones, try to help them, try to direct them in a way they should go. Definitely I see myself going into it.”
The former Almeria player who had a stellar time in the La Liga said the league needs to be fixed quickly. He recounted the days when he started in the league as an Enyimba player and also also that of his contemporaries and noted that a lot has changed, especially in quality of players and the league.
“I think we really need to get it better. Because I remember during our days, even before us, this league used to be very strong that every player dreamed to start in Nigerian league, so many big names. For some time now, we stopped seeing that, we stopped seeing these names from Nigerian football. I believe that we really have to get it better.
You know as you’re growing, you intend to get better, not going backwards. I wish we come back to get this league better because we need it, Nigeria is a home of football. We have so many football players that need this platform to be able to show what they have.”
Kalu was in Qatar for the FIFA World Cup and just like other Nigerians who were also in Qatar, he had mixed feelings. He said he felt sad watching fans of other countries enjoying the World Cup.
“Very sad. I happened to watch one of the games during this last World Cup. I felt very bad when I got to Qatar and seeing other countries, seeing their fans and their people, how they were celebrating and enjoying themselves, knowing that their teams are in the world cup. I felt very sad. That is life, that’s football. We just have to learn from it and try to get better in the next world cup.”