Widely travelled Nigerian footballer Henry Makinwa has revealed that a number of Nigerian footballers are stranded in Europe.
Makinwa‘s career has seen him play in 10 countries namely Spain, Portugal, Scotland, Romania, China, Israel, Malta, Egypt, Cyprus and Indonesia.
He told our correspondent on the telephone from Spain on Thursday, ”I made some investigation and found out that we have almost 2000 Nigerian footballers in Europe without clubs and are afraid to go back home because of the poor situation.
These players are too young to waste away like that.
”In Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Holland these players are wasting away. Some of them get jobs outside football while some play in the lowest divisions without resident permits; they remain illegal immigrants. When I was in Holland, Lisbon, Madrid, Brussels and Oslo, it was the same thing.”
Makinwa, who played under ex-Tottenham Hotspurs manager Juande Ramos at Rayo Valecano and was once a signing target for Jose Mourinho when he was at Vitoria Setubal, said a viable domestic league would solve the problem.
He said, ”Something has to be done and I think the solution is back home. Why can‘t we organise a standard professional league at home?
“I have my facts and I will hand them over to the government if they will listen to me. It is on how to solve this problem and how to make practical changes in one month. If government is interested, then I will come home to present it.
”We must organise our league so that these boys can go back home to play. It‘s alarming; they play football on Sundays and hope to get a breakthrough but it‘s impossible. I tell them to go back home but they always say ‘what are going to do when we get back home?‘ They prefer to remain illegal immigrants.
”Brazilians go home to play when they are not wanted in Europe; a big player like Ronaldo did it. Why is Kanu not back home to play the last years of his football? It‘s because we don‘t have a good league in Nigeria, no sponsorship and money.”
The player said most of the players were tricked into travelling to Europe and did not pass through the right process.
”They were not signed. Some came in through youth programes in Sweden, Portugal, Spain and other countries. Some others spent a lot of money coming; thinking when they come in, it will be easy to get a club. Some were lured by dubious agents,” the 33-year-old striker, who holds an EU passport, said.
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