NFF reveals why no Eaglet failed MRI in Tanzania

Francis Achi

Dr. Mohammed Sanusi ,scribe of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), has revealed why no Eaglet player failed the MRI test in Tanzania, the host of CAF Under 17 tournament, totorimews.com reports.

According to the football administrator, NFF conducted several MRI tests on the Golden Eaglets to ascertain the players that would eventually make it to Tanzania and also mandated the coaches to have a back- up plan for those that might fail the test.

He also informed that NFF prepared the team very well with the international tournament in Turkey and the WAFU Under 17 qualifying tournament in Niger, where the Eaglets qualified from the zone to play in the main CAF Under 17 in Tanzania.

“NFF did very well to prepare the Golden Eaglets. We had competition in Turkey but unfortunately some of the players that played in Turkey and Niger could not pass the MRI test here in Nigeria and that was why we repeated MRI severally.” Dr. Sanusi told totorinews.com

He added: “You could see that from what we did that it was a very good job. No player from the team was disqualified in Tanzania. The players did the CAF MRI test and all passed.

“What we charged the coaches to do was to have a back-up plan. The back-up plan was to look at all the positions and where they think that there may be likelihood of problems, they invited more players to fill in the gap.

“MRI test was conducted for 15 players few weeks to the commencement of the tournament. We did another MRI for another crop of players until we got the required number of players that could make it,” he said.

“We also considered the physiological make up of the players. There are players that were on grade 3 and by the time we did the MRI test, they jumped to grade 6. Totally disqualified.

“We tried as much as possible to avoid having players at the border line grades of 4 and 5. So we had to delay the test until the eve of the tournament . We know that if we do MRI test at that time, if a player is on grade 3, he cannot jump to grade 6.

“The player can only jump to grade 5, which is still within the pass range . This was what we did and we were able to make it clean in Tanzania,” he concluded.