Allegations of bribe for spots took centre stage when the coach of the Nigeria U20 team Paul Aigbogun announced his squad for the U20 World Youth Championship in Poland.
Owngoalnigeria.com was forced to investigate the issue due to the claims with an audio of an unnamed player who was apparently dropped from the squad claiming he was asked to leave because he couldn’t raise cash to buy a spot in the team.
Per our investigations, we found out that coaches of the team did not demand cash from any of the player who made the final cut of 21 players after extensive camping in Nigeria and later Germany.
The allegations is being peddled by some players who were dropped from the team in Nigeria before the training tour of Germany and also two foreign based players who didn’t impress while in camp.
According to a team insider, four of the players dropped are owned by one intermediary who is very close to the coach but yet none of his players made the team as Aigbogun was very thorough in selecting his final squad.
Most of the players born abroad were scouted by the London based coach when he toured Europe early this year in search of options to bolster his squad for the WYC. He however didn’t hesitate to drop them when they failed to impress.
We also gathered that some journalist who recommended players to the coach also pushed the allegations of bribe for spots after the player recommended failed to make the squad. One even threaten to tarnished the image of the coach per a screen shot in the possession of our editorial team.
Nigeria will play their opening game of the tournament on Friday 24th of May against Qatar before engaging USA and Ukraine in their other group game.
