Interim coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Austine Eguavoen has named the two players he wanted as replacement for Al Shabab forward Odion Ighalo in his 2021 Africa Cup of Nations squad.
Ighalo is yet to be released by his Saudi Arabia team with Nigeria set to start their campaign at the 2021 AFCON against Egypt on the 11th of January. The club is insisting that his contract bars him from representing Nigeria at international level.
Eguavoen said he already picked two players to replace the AFCON 2019 highest goal scorer but CAF rules which says players in the final squad can only be replaced on account of injury stopped him.
He said he already had Nasarawa United forward Silas Nwankwo or Hammarby winger Akinkumi Amoo in his mind as replacement but couldn’t add either of them due to the rule. He is however hopeful that they will be a fair ending to the Ighalo saga.
“We spoke, we exchanged text messages and from his response he is doing everything possible to come by. I thought of replacing him. I gave a deadline and tried to bring in either the boy from Nasarawa United Silas Nwankwo. He is a good player no doubt because it’s striker for striker and also Akinkumi Amoo but he is not a striker but again can play off the striker”, he explained
“So I thought of replacing Ighalo with any of them but what they are saying, CAF is saying is only base on injury, health reasons that’s the only way you can replace players.
“So that was what was holding us back but the Federation is putting all efforts way out from here. The young man Odion is also doing his best from there. Hopefully we will get a positive answer. So if it wasn’t for the rules that says it has to be on medical grounds otherwise you can’t replace somebody. Maybe we would have just told him Odion you know what. We don’t want you to go through that“, he concluded.
