An advocacy group, Justice For Kwara Youth, has accused the management of the Nigerian professional football league side Kwara United of not engaging young indigenous players.
The group, in a statement issued by its coordinator, Abdulqadir Taofeek, over the weekend, said the club’s management prefers working with either players from other states or those from Kwara who have made marks outside of the state.
Taofeek, in the statement, also alleged the club’s leadership of mismanagement of funds.
The statement read, “We are saying this to stand against injustice melted on our fellow Kwara youth who wants to pick a career in football.
“We appreciate the efforts of our dear Governor Abdulrahman AbdulRasaq for his support towards sport and particularly Kwara United since he assumed office.
“However, despite the efforts of the Governor, the management of Kwara United is a weevil in his grain. They are making his efforts towards building the team fruitless, effortless, and unproductive by not managing the club effectively.”
“According to a report, the General Manager of Kwara United, Bashir Badawiy, was quoted as saying: ‘we have 11 players who are of Kwara origin out of 35 players among which are Issa Magaji, Sulyman Zubair, Issa Gatta, Musa AbdulAfeez, Abdullateef Ishola, Abdulsalam Abdulsalam, Shola Ibrahim, Ayodeji Bamidele, Kabiru Balogun, Joshua Agboola, Saka Habeeb’.
“What Badawiy did not add is that those players he listed had been in the team before and they had already established themselves before he join the club. Since he took office, no single talented indigene of the state has been signed.
“The management of Kwara United are not encouraging the youths who have the talent in sport (football) whereas they are discouraging them in the sense that those who were supposed to admit are not being admitted and those that were successfully admitted were later dropped out of the club because of the pressure mounted on them by the management.
“We have different football academies in the state that trains talented players but there is no encouragement at all. Kwara United once had a feeder team where they used to promote players into the main team but it is now obsolete. Kwara Football Academy (KFA) once used to be a team where players are promoted to the main team, but now, it is no more promoting players. Last year, they (KFA) promoted a player called Aboto from ASA local government, he was later dropped. This Bashir Aboto is a talented fellow who had received numerous invitations from international clubs but he choose to play for his state team, in the end, he was dropped.”
He alleged that as part of the club’s cripple prospective players from the state, the former team captain was fired for no tangible reason.
He added that the club dropped no fewer than five indigenous players – Sodiq Alamoyo, Segun Adebiosu, Mutiu Adeleke, Akeem Onigbari, and Saka Habeeb – and recently sign another eleven non-Kwara new players.
He said one Ahmad Ibrahim was also dropped from the team after he was signed and unveiled.
“We urged our ever listening governor to call on the club’s management to do the right thing as the fund being spend on the team is taxpayers’ money,” he said in the statement.