In a bid to develop youth football in the 20 clubs taking part in this season’s top-flight, the Nigeria Premier League (NPL) is planning to organise a championship for the youth teams of Premier League sides across the country.
Spokesman for the Premier League, Emeka Nwani, told SuperSport.com that the move is to ensure that the feeder teams of the 20 clubs are also actively involved in playing the game rather than taking the back seat.
According to Nwani, the competition will take a zonal format since the NPL has taken into cognizance the fact that a league system will be too demanding on the clubs.
“The Nigeria Premier League (NPL) will soon organise a competition for the feeder teams of the 20 clubs taking part in this season’s Premier League. Remember that the NPL told all the clubs before the start of this season to ensure that they set up their feeder teams with the age limit of players not more than 17 years.
“So in order to make sure that these feeder teams or youth teams as you will like to call them are not just there for the sake of being backups for the senior teams, the NPL has decided to start a competition for them very soon. The competition will be in a zonal format. This format we believe will be good for the clubs for the time being,” he said.
The champions of the six zones are expected to converge at a venue to feature in a playoff that will determine the winner of the youth cup.
The NPL media man also took time to warn clubs of the grave consequence of fielding players that are older than the stipulated 17 years during the proposed competition.
“The NPL will not condone a situation where clubs field players that are older than 17 years. Once we discover that, I can assure you that appropriate sanctions will be meted out to such a club or clubs,” he told SuperSport.com.
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