Al-Hikmah University Journal

The remarkable performances of the Under-17 National Male football Team can bring about several development and growth of the game in any nation. It is against this background that research of this nature aimed at assessing the contributions of the performances of the Under-17 National Male Football Team to the development of football in Nigeria was carried out. The study was guided by seven (7) research objectives, questions and hypotheses. Aspects of football development where the significant contributions of the Team’s performances were researched, are adequate football facilities and equipment, revitalization of the nation’s economy, adequate sponsorship and marketing of football, modern information and communication technology and establishment of football academies in Nigeria. The researcher adopted the ex-post facto research design on a population of 1200 sports administrators from 10 sports organizations in Nigeria. The sample size for the study was 292. The instrument that was used was a self -developed questionnaire which made use of a 5-point Likert scale and was administered to the football administrators. From the analysis of the data gathered from the instrument. The test of hypothesis using the Chi-Square x2 at alpha level of 0.05 was used. The hypotheses were all rejected because the calculated p-value of 0.000 were all less than the alpha level of 0.05(p<0.05). Hence, the researcher concludes that the under- 17 National Male Football Team contributed significantly to the various sectors of football development in Nigeria. It was also recommended that there is the need for coaches and other personnel to go for more training to improve their coaching skills as well as keeping them abreast with modern football techniques.