Head coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Jose Peseiro has revealed the reason why he dropped the trio of Chuba Akpom, Victor Boniface and Gift Orban in his squad of players for the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Sierra Leone.
The coach omitted the trio where among the top scoring players for Nigeria in the recently concluded season with Akpom scoring 28 goals in the English Championship for Middlesbrough, while the duo of Orban and Boniface scored 20 and 22 goals respectively. Orban in particular got all of his goals within a period of four months following his move to Belgium side Gent from second division Norwegian side Stabæk.
Explaining their omission, Peseiro confirmed what OwnGoalNigeria.comearlier wrote about their absence in the squad saying it’s because of the policy of the NFF on inviting not more than 20 foreign based players to the team. In this case he had to make do with 19 players.
He said the above explanation hold forte for the duo of Orban and Boniface but Akpom just like we reported isn’t eligible due to the expiration of his Nigerian passport.
Speaking on the two Belgium based players he said he visited them and assured them of a spot in his team but because of the financial issues of the NFF, he didn’t include them. A situation which he said he has to understand with the football house.
“I visit them. I was in England, I was in Spain, I was in Italy. I visited them from my pocket. For that I will like to call them but if I call them, I will have to drop some of these players like you know I can only call 19 foreign based players. I believe in the local players but our federation (NFF) is not in a good financial situation for that, so because of that I can only call 19 players from outside Nigeria”, he explained after today’s training.
Speaking further, he assured them that they will be part of his subsequent squads especially if they maintain their current club form before the next round of games. He also took out time to explain the invitation of captain of the team Ahmed Musa who hasn’t seen lot of action for Turkish side Sivasspor.
Musa according to Peseiro is a winger while the aforementioned duo are strikers. He said including them ahead of Musa will mean taking five strikers to Monrovia for the game against Sierra Leone. A game which he said he stuck with the 19 players who have been in his team since he took over a year ago.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
