Startling revelations have emerged that Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) stopped the trio of Musa Mohammed, Blessing Eleke and Stephen Eze from late invitations for the Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Seychelles because they felt the players were not needed.
Just 24 hours after reports emerged that Mohammed, Eleke and Eze had been directed to report at the Eagles’ camp in place of Ola Aina, Alex Iwobi and William Troost-Ekong, the NFF released a contrasting announcement.
It has now been gathered by footballlive.ng that the NFF stopped Mohammed, Eleke and Eze from getting late invites the match in Victoria because top officials at The Glasshouse were already disappointed that Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr invited 23 foreign-based lads in the first place for the matchday 2 AFCON 2019 qualifier.
The NFF lords were said to have already been aghast with the high expenses incurred in getting 21 players to Seychelles, minus the injured three, and were further taken aback with Rohr’s decision to play up his standby list in calling up Mohammed, Eleke and Eze.
At that point, the top shots decided to wield their iron fist, pointing out that it is rather much of a waste to replace the injured players with more from Europe, instead of home-based players from the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL).
The development is said to have informed the decision to allow five of those who were with the team in camp for the Seychelles match opt out of Tuesday’s exhibition match in Liberia, while four NPFL stars were called up in a hurry.
Arguments have also surfaced over the economic sense of even lining out any foreign-based player at all for the match in Monrovia, as it turned out to be a mere exhibition game, not a full-fledged international friendly.
