How To Become A Professional Footballer In Nigeria (2024)

In this write-up, we show you how to become a professional footballer in Nigeria, what to do and the best football academy to join if you want to start a career as a professional soccer player. Football is the most popular entertaining sporting game in the world due to its global reach. Successful star players of this game such as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Mikel Obi, Jay Jay Okocha have gone a long way to make a name for themselves as professional athletes with a large fan base.

Nigerian professional footballer image credit: Nigerian Infopedia

In Nigeria, there are football players who play for top European football clubs and are making cool money through their salaries and via endorsement deals. To become a footballer in Nigeria, you must first have the skill or talent to do so, and you must advertise yourself to the public. This include playing for club and country. It is then that you can stand a chance to be noticed by football clubs abroad where you can kickstart your professional footballing career.

If you are an aspiring footballer and you wish to put your soccer skills and talent to good use in a soccer pitch, you might want to read this article on how to become a football player in Nigeria. Note that you won’t be limited to just local football clubs but might have luck to reach the international stage to start a profession as a footballer and earn cool money for your services.

HOW TO BECOME A FOOTBALLER IN NIGERIA EASILY (2024)

Here is step by step guide on how to become a successful footballer in Nigeria this 2024.

STEP 1: MAKE UP YOUR MIND

There is no successful footballer who became popular by chance. You have to carry out your research and make up your mind on what you about doing because aside having the skill or talent to play football, there are other things you have to do to be famous. It requires hard work, discipline, determination and patience. Football is a professional sport that requires both psychological and physical process. Be sure that football is what you want to do before you delve into it. Know your strength and weaknesses, ask yourself questions like – Do I possess an outstanding football talent with skills to help me succeed at the highest level in this football profession? etc.

STEP 2: HAVE A PLAN MAPPED OUT

It is very essential that you have a plan on ground if you want to start your football career in Nigeria or even abroad. A career plan keeps you disciplined always and ensures that you don’t go off balance as you advance in your career. Within your plan, ensure you map out things like the location of football club you aspire to play for? where to get money to register for training sessions in a football academy? How to get a trusted player agent(s) that will link you to football clubs and the kind of club you want to play for.

STEP 3: REGISTER TO TRAIN AT A FOOTBALL TRAINING ACADEMY

There are many top football academies in Nigeria where you can register to train yourself to become a professional footballer. These academies have links with clubs abroad and can offer you the chance to play for one or more of their sister clubs home or abroad. When you attend a football training academy, you are highly more recognized than one who did not, as you are exposed to the right audience and player agents are mostly found in these places. The following are the best football academies located in Nigeria: Pepsi Football Academy, FC Barcelona Football academy. With the good training being offered by these academies, you stand a chance of being a professional football player in the country.

STEP 4: PROMOTE YOURSELF

Even if you are talented and can dribble from one end of the football field to the other, you would still need to show yourself to right audience by marketing your skills. Remember that if you play well, you attracts the right audience, interest of scouts, clubs and sporting brands. As an aspiring professional footballer, you can achieve this by harnessing the power of social media. Here you upload your skills on video channels on YouTube, open a Facebook page, Twitter handle and put clips of yourself in order to attract interest of the football community to yourself. I have seen players called up to play for the national team after playing for a local club. Just know that in the football profession, promoting your talent avails you more opportunities to get on the national team and attract attention of agents and international clubs.

If you have contacts or social media handles of top Nigerian footballers, you can contact them to help introduce you to their agents or even club scouts. You might just be lucky and you will be sent to trail in any of the top clubs in Europe top football leagues. Note that the contacts of Nigerian licensed agents and scouts can be found online or gotten at any football academy if you want to contact them.

STEP 5: SIGNING YOUR FIRST CONTRACT

Every aspiring footballer dreams of landing a lucrative contract with a top football club. What most don’t know is that these contracts aren’t as player friendly as it suppose to be. You must be careful before pending your signature to any contract document. This is where you would need the advise and presence of a lawyer. Never you sign a contract in his absence. Many Nigerian footballers made such mistakes and had an unsuccessful career due to this.

The contract document must be thoroughly read by the lawyer and the footballer before signature is put on paper. The lawyer should help interpret any terms and conditions placed by the club that would hamper the player in anyway. Also make sure you have your travel documents ready including your international passport which might be required of you when an opportunity presents itself.

CONCLUSION

With the above steps and explanation, if you believe that you are talented with the right skills to play football, you can follow the steps in becoming a professional footballer and have a successful career as a soccer player in Nigeria.