NFF President, Ibrahim Gusau has suggested that foreign-born players do not possess the mentality to play African football.
The new NFF boss also hinted that the number of foreign-born players in the Super Eagles would be reduced going forward.
He, however, noted that the country couldn’t rely on the home-based players alone to bring back the glory days in Nigerian football.
“As for me, what to do is try and see how we can reduce the higher number of the Nigerian born diaspora players in the team,” Gusau explained.
“I am not saying they’re not Nigerians nor am I saying they’re not good enough. But their mentality is not good for African football and most of the matches we played are in Africa.
“At the global level, we only go for tournaments or friendly matches.”
But all our qualifiers are played within Africa.”
Gusau further explained that most African sides make use of a majority of their home-based players who are used to the African way of football and mentality.
“Most of these teams out of 54 countries in Africa, almost 46 countries use the bulk of African players.
“So many of them use players that are used to African football with the right mentality of African football. So, if we bring in players born abroad without an African mentality, there will be problems.
“But we don’t have a problem with players who are born here and are playing in Europe because they started here.”