Nigeria’s second match 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Cape Verde next will be without all seven players plying their trades in the English Premiership League as well as the Scottish League.
This was confirmed by the Super Eagles Franco-German manager, Gernot Rohr.
Rohr confirmed over the week that all seven United Kingdom-based players who are currently in the Super Eagles camp in Lagos will not be available for selection against Cape Verde due to the Covid-19 protocols and restrictions by the UK Government.
Cape Verde is among the over 60 countries the UK Government has marked as “red alert” nations with high rate of the emerging new Covid-19 variant.
The players include Leicester City's duo of Kelechi Iheanacho and Wilfred Ndidi, Glasgow Rangers' pair of Joe Aribo and Leon Balogun, Everton's Alex Iwobi, Watford's William Troost-Ekong and Oghenekaro Etebo.
The foregoing players will head back to the United Kingdom from Saturday, after the match with Liberia later today.
Rohr has, however, stressed that he’s fully focused on the match against the Lone Stars and wants to take it one game at a time.
“The first game here is with Liberia, we will have 29 players and we will only focus on this game.
“Of course in our heart, that’s why we have 29 players to replace the eight United Kingdom-based players who have to leave us but for the moment we concentrate on the first game.
“And then we will have around 20 or 21 players for the second game, it will be another step.
“At first let us focus on this wonderful match against Liberia. I know that some supporters can come, unfortunately not everybody, only 5,000 but we want to give them joy and we know that all Nigerians are behind the team.” Rohr said.
Meanwhile, President of the Nigeria Football Federation, Amaju Pinnick had pleaded with the English Football Association and Scottish Football Association to reverse their decision preventing the British-based Super Eagles players traveling to Cape Verde but those talks were not fruitful.
This article was most recently revised and updated 3 years ago
