Mfon Udoh, the former highest goalscorer in the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL), has recently highlighted the issue of bias towards home-based players in the national team by their foreign-based counterparts. Despite the abundance of talented footballers abroad, some players from the domestic league occasionally receive a national team call-up. However, they usually end up as peripheral figures and struggle to fit in with the rest of the squad.
According to Udoh, who has earned three caps for Nigeria, the national team camp is not always as welcoming and friendly as it seems. In an interview with the Abu Azeez podcast, he disclosed that home-based players are often isolated in the camp and looked down upon by their foreign-based counterparts.
Udoh explained that foreign players tend to see local players as inferior due to their lower salaries and lack of consistent call-ups to the national team. As a result, some of them tend to distance themselves from their home-based colleagues, making the camp atmosphere less friendly.
He said: “When most foreign players see local players like us, they tend to look down on us. I’ve been in the Super Eagles before some of them, but because they have consistently gotten call-ups, they feel like they own the place. Being in the Nigerian league and getting a national team call-up is very difficult. All those things make them look down on us. And the fact that we don’t have money adds to it. Some home-based players earn 500,000 to 600,000 compared to the foreign players who earn up to 30 million. Because of this disparity, some of them feel we will beg them for money. So they tend to distance themselves from us.”
Even though Jose Peseiro, the Super Eagles coach, has shown some level of support for the NPFL, he hardly includes them in his team sheets. Despite Nigeria’s struggles in the goalkeeping department, none of the NPFL goalkeepers have been given an opportunity to prove their mettle.
