Highly rated Chelsea teen forward Tammy Abraham has asked to be left out of Nigeria’s squad for their upcoming AFCON 2019 qualifiers against South Africa, as he wants to focus on playing for England.
Abraham who is on loan to Bristol City went into the record books when he scored his 19th league goal of the season in the English Championship to become the first teenager ever to score 16 or more goals in a Championship season.
Overall he has 22 goals this season, a tally which could have been more if not for the injury he sustained that saw him missed some games.
Nigeria approached the father of the England youth international, who incidentally is a close childhood friend of the president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Amaju Pinnick, but their request to see him switch allegiance to Nigeria immediately was turned down.
” Tammy won’t be in the Nigerian team for upcoming qualifiers, maybe in the future but not so fast. He has confirmed his participation for England at the U-20 World Cup in Korea, which is around same time when Nigeria will be taking on South Africa”, Owngoalnigeria.com United Kingdom (UK) correspondent Michael James reports.
” He is keen on progressing through the ranks of the English national team set up. He has been told he is the future with age not on the side of Wayne Rooney, Jamie Vardy and Jermaine Defoe who are all ahead of him in the England pecking order”.
The 19 year old becomes the second Anglo-Nigerian player who has opt to represent England instead of Nigeria within the space of one week, as Everton Ademola Lookman also did same last week.
*Michael James
