In the past few years under the leadership of Amaju Pinnick, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) were very active in luring players of Nigerian descent to pledge allegiance to the senior national team of Nigeria, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Players such as Alex Iwobi, Ola Aina, Calvin Bassey, Joe Aribo, Ademola Lookman, Maduka Okoye, Kevin Akpoguma and Cyriel Dessers among others made their debut for the senior national team of Nigeria despite their eligibility for other countries.
However it was not plain sailing for the players who made the decision with Ola Aina, who represented England at various youth levels confessing to The Beautiful Game podcast that England tried to stop him from switching to Nigeria.
“It got to a time when I started training a lot with the first team at Chelsea. It got me to be traveling with them but I wasn’t playing, I wasn’t also playing for my age the U21s at that time. So I wasn’t really playing and England looked at that and I thought my track record like the South FA they know man. You know what I mean , I have been doing this from Under-16 to 20s and all that. I feel that was possible all it is but clearly not”, he explained.
He said the year which was his last with England at that level gas him thinking a lot about Nigeria, who were at that time using his father and his agent to put pressure on him.
” So I hadn’t play for the England team for maybe two years and the last year was maybe my last year in the England U21s. I started getting the sniff. So I remember at the end of that season Nigeria were knocking from my Dad and the agent and even the federation”, he stated.
At that same time, his teammates at Chelsea Mikel and Moses were fully established internationals with Nigeria and even his childhood friend Iwobi. He said they kept on pushing him hard to make the switch which he did by honoring an invitation to their camp in England.
“Alex Iwobi has been playing for them a year or two I think and Alex is my boy. I mean we grew up together and he seems right he keeps telling me it’s fun. I’m in the Chelsea team with Obi Mikel and he was telling me come, Victor Moses is telling me like if you want to come , then come. Their manager is telling me the same thing”, the former Torino defender revealed.
Aina said that session made him make up his mind on switching to Nigeria but it wasn’t that smooth as England tried to make him have a change of mind by having someone speak with him.
“So I said yeah, I will go into it. I remember they had a camp in England to play couple of games against teams like Poland and I think at Barnet, they called me to train and it is was like bro I had the time of my life. It was such a different energy by the end of that camp. I was like I am on it. I got my passport, sent my letter to the FA. They tried to fight back though, I give it to England, the FA tried to fight back like do you really want to do this. They sent someone to the training ground at Chelsea.
“I can’t remember his name now he tried to convince me but I said to him with all due respect decision is made and my mind is made up in it and he took it well , wished me well and that was it”, he rounded up saying.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
