Mikel, Enyeama, Moses Betrayed Me – Oliseh

Oliseh
controversially resigned from his position as chief coach of the Super Eagles
in February 2016 citing contract violations, unpaid wages and benefits to
players and assistant coaches.

Oliseh
who was highly criticised for the failing to manage the crisis amongst his
players which thereafter led to the retirement of Enyeama and Emmanuel Emenike,
confessed that some of the key players in the team never supported him.

“My
first official act was to call the team Captain Vincent Enyeama to rub minds
and fix an appointment to see him. Same act was accorded to John Obi Mikel and
Victor Moses of Chelsea. All except for Obi Mikel picked up my call and Mikel
even ignored my eventual SMS,” Oliseh explained via his personal website.

“Went
to London to see Mikel and Moses but could only see Moses as Mikel did not
reply to my calls and we could not get a hold of him. Moses came two and a half
hours late to our meeting but none the less we had a productive talk in the
company of my assistant, Jean Francois Losciuto.

“Three
weeks to my first official game in charge of the Super Eagles against Tanzania,
and the invitations were sent out to the clubs. Two weeks to the game Victor
Moses opted out citing fear of contracting an injury whilst playing for Nigeria
in favour of his club via a written letter to the team manager of the Super
Eagles.

“Most
players reported to camp on Monday prior to the Tanzania game, Vincent Enyeama
was supposed to fly in Tuesday morning, only for me to be surprisingly informed
via SMS that he was skipping the game because he lost the mum some weeks
earlier.

“I
called him up and made an agreement with him, as I needed not only my captain
and such a good goalkeeper for my opening game, that if he came for the game on
Friday I would release him to go to the village after the game and skip the
friendly game versus Niger scheduled for three days later after the Tanzania
encounter, which he agreed.

“The
team was scheduled to fly out on Thursday. On Wednesday afternoon Enyeama
called to say he was not coming for the game, definitively. I was shocked as we
had an agreement, we needed his experience, leadership…”