Nationwide League One (NLO), Nigeria’s third-tier football league, has stated intentions to deploy modern technologies to support the work of player agents and scouts ahead of the start of the 2022-2023 season.
The implementation of the technical scouting tool, according to Abdulgafar Oladimeji, the NLO’s communications officer, was principally made to highlight the abilities and capabilities of young football players in the league to foreign clubs.
The 2023 season is set to begin on May 3 at Sani Abacha Stadium in Kano.
Oladimeji added that the invention would give football scouts and agents access to a variety of U-19 football players with full options and player histories via a technology platform that would allow them to evaluate their objectives without being present.
He revealed that with the innovation, interested agents scouting players in the country would easily do so through the Internet.
He said, “Gone are the days when international club owners are invited to watch and pick talented players. NLO has come up with a website through which international clubs watch live matches and make their choices of talented players.
“No football project can prosper without the media. The sponsors come in due to the extent of media coverage. It is now mandatory that any club participating in the NLO league must have a media department.”
He emphasized NLO’s commitment to ensuring that only players aged 19 and under participated in the league and said that the organization had implemented anti-forgery processes to counteract fraud and corruption tendencies in the licensing process.
Eight teams are anticipated to trade tackles in Kano, just as they will in other states in the north, according to Oladimeji, who also stated that the top teams in each state will compete against one another in an interstate tournament from which four teams will be chosen to represent the north in the national championship.
