By Stanley Nwanosike
The Nigeria Nationwide League One (NLO) says the death of late Brazilian Soccer Legend, Edson Arantes de Nascimento, popularly known as Pele, has created a big vacuum in the administration of soccer globally.
The Director of NLO (South East), Ebere Amaraizu, disclosed this while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu on Tuesday on what the world is losing in the demise of the greatest legend of football.
Amaraizu noted that football and its administration globally would miss Pele’s pragmatic advisory role on grassroots and community soccer development in which he grew from.
According to him, “we join millions of soccer-loving fans of the late Soccer Icon to commiserate with his family and his country where he began his soccer journey and also ended at 82 years.
He said: “Pele may have gone but his positive footprints, which are worthy of emulation, lives on and stand as a point of positive reference for upcoming players and including our younger generation.
“One remarkable thing is the discipline, commitment and passion to impact positively for a functional society using the instrumentality of community sports, which he brought to bear.
“Pele also used the instrumentality of football where he discovered himself to serve his country and to establish himself as international star and hero of all times as well as for self discovery.”
Amaraizu, who is the National Coordinator of Police Campaign Against Cultism and Other Vices (POCACOV), said that Pele used the instrumentality of soccer as a platform for peace building and crime-free community.
“So many things have been said concerning the late icon but the takeaways should be on the need for young Nigerians to try as much as possible to discover the gold mine in them.
“Emulating Pele, young people should jettison arrogant and truant behaviours; but be team players, role model, patriotic and disciplined in all they do,” he said.
It would be recalled that Pele, who won the World Cup three times, died on Dec. 29, 2022, in Brazil at the age of 82.
He scored over 1,000 goals as a player with the most illustrious of playing careers of all time, with 77 of those recorded through 92 appearances for his country. (NAN)
