By Rasaq Oboirien
COACHES and players of the 20 Nigeria Premier League teams await the supply of the season's official match balls by the League Management Company (LMC), reports NaijaSportsXtra.blogspot.com.
Checks on the clubs activities revealed that no club has got any supplies from the country's domestic football regulators let alone train with the new balls.
In most pre-season games involving the topflight teams and practice sessions, the team play with last season's match balls while the newly promoted teams of Kastina United, ABS FC, Gombe United and Remo Stars train with personal balls.
Opinions of players and coaches on the development informed of anxiousness or fear.
Some who spoke on condition of anonymity said: "Good idea from the LMC but as players, we needed to have practiced with the official match ball. Take for example, am an attacker-cum-winger, I don't know if my pace can match that of the ball or my final ball from a cross would get to where I want it to get to for the strikers to score.
"In a nut-shell, we don't know the quality of these balls."
Another player, a goalkeeper said:"I don't know if the new match ball is a jabulani, how would I deal with its pace when I have not trained with it with my trainer.
"I could be blamed for an own-goal from fans, little would they know we have not trained with the new NPL match balls.
A top coach of one of the clubs while making his comment said, "Logistics could have been the problem supplying these match balls to clubs, however, I don't think we should start making excuses rather prepare our teams for the season which kicks off this weekend.
"Ideally the coaches ought to have been training with the squad with the match ball. Nowadays these balls can be funny, looking at the technology behind producing them.
"I want to urge the LMC to make available the official season match balls to the various clubs on time."
The new season kicks off with a high profile game between Kano Pillars and FC IfeanyiUbah who are both Federation and Charity Cup winners at the Sani Abacha Stadium today(Saturday).
