ABUJA - Despite helping Nigeria secure a ticket for next year’s Africa Youth Championship in Rwanda, the team’s foreign based players have been axed from participating in further engagements with the squad this year.
Assistant coach of the side, Ben Iroha told brilafm.net in an exclusive interview that the players have been left out of all forthcoming engagements because their European clubs would be reluctant to release them.
“We are no thinking about calling the players from abroad for our immediate programmes before the African championship.
“It’s true that we will need to play some friendly matches and even go on tour, but the foreign-based players will not be part of this.
“It’s going to be mainly home-based, because those abroad may not be available. Their clubs may not be ready to release them. We will use that opportunity to discover new stars,” Iroha enthused.
The former international ended by hailing the team for booking a ticket to next year’s AYC in Rwanda, while recalling that he could not make the trip to Sudan for the final qualifier due to hic-cups in the flight schedule.
“There was nothing serious about it. What happened was that we could not get enough seats on the plane, and I had to give way to others to make the trip,” he stated off-handedly.
|
