Nigeria U23 team sealed a spot in the next round of the qualifiers for the U23 Africa Cup of Nations by beating Tanzania 2-0 in Ibadan to progress on a 3-1 aggregate score.
Despite the win, the team didn’t quite convinced lot of people who saw the game and it further raised question marks around the quality of the players called up by the coaches of the team especially the players based abroad.
As many as 12 of them were in the camp of the team mostly from second rated leagues in Europe with Ibrahim Sunusi the only player who plays outside Europe among the foreign based players.
Speaking to OwnGoalNigeria.com, a member of the technical crew admitted that they lack proper knowledge of Nigerian players abroad who are within the age limit. Hence they had to settle for the ones they have been in touch with or recommended to them by certain individuals.
” It wasn’t easy getting players within the age limit and also assurance that they will be available. We actually don’t have a pool of players written down before the game but we do now. I must admit that we didn’t call up the best players. It’s a case of settling with what we have just to get the job done”, a coach of the team told OwnGoalNigeria.com.
On allegations of players paying to get invited, he said none of the coaches is involved in such as they treated and picked the players based on what they saw in training. He however admitted that they weren’t in charge of some of the players who were in the camp of the team.
” For the much that I know and also for the rest of the crew, no player paid a dime to be in the team. Some players were brought to us by certain individuals and we gave them a chance. Even in our team, we had two players who played their way into the team. Maybe those who brought them to us collected money but we dealt with the players on account of what they did in training”, he concluded.
