The past week has been filled with a lot of scuffles in the media between the NFF, England-based Watford FC, and Nigerian striker l, Dennis Emmanuel over the availability of the striker to honor a national team call up. This however wasn’t the last of its kind as an Arabian club, Al-Shabab also declined to release Odion Ighalo for the Nigerian side.
This move brought about many opinions in the media with people calling it an insult and some inside sources saying there seems to be a clause in the strikers’ contract saying he won’t honor any international call up as this was at a time where the striker has retired from international football.
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NFF Head of Media and Communications, Ademola Olajire, however, said in an interview with Brila FM that the NFF will not be reporting Al-Shabab FC to FIFA in order not to destroy relationships for the future for the player, club and the country, Nigeria.
“Al Shabab has confirmed that they won’t be releasing Ighalo for the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon,” he said.
“However, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) will not go to that level of reporting Ighalo’s club to FIFA because you won’t be helping the player. This was the same player that was invited for the 2022 World Cup qualifier against Liberia in Morocco and he was released,” he concluded.
The Nigerian contingent have already arrived in Cameroon ahead of the AFCON 2022 which begins on Sunday, 9th January 2022, with the Super Eagles set to begin their campaign with a clash against Egypt on Tuesday, 11th January 2022.
