Aiyegbeni Hits Out At NFF Over Begging Of Players

In recent years, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has been able to convince players with dual nationality to play for Nigeria.

However, former Super Eagles star, Yakubu Aiyegbeni is unhappy with the way the NFF goes abroad to approach players born outside Nigeria’s shores to play for the Super Eagles.

The current Nigerian squad has a large percentage of players who did not grow up in the country but switched their international allegiance after discussions with the NFF.

The likes of Joe Aribo, Cyriel Dessers, Tyronne Ebuehi and Semi Ajayi are players who the NFF managed to convince to switch international allegiance.

It does not stop there as NFF’s president Amaju Pinnick has been trying to convince QPR’s Ebere Eze to play for the Super Eagles.

The 21-year-old was born in London and has represented England at youth level. But he qualifies to play for the Super Eagles through his parents.

Pinnick visited Eze last year as he tries to make him switch allegiance to Nigeria. But Aiyegbeni is unhappy with the approach, saying Nigeria has enough talents, and no one should be begged to play for the Super Eagles.

The former Everton man said this in an Instagram live interview with Supersport presenter, Carol Tshabalala.

“We don’t need to beg any player to play for Nigeria,” Aiyegbeni said. You need to show the desire that you want to play for your country.

“Not going around begging players to play”. It’s a big shame! Nobody’s bigger than Nigeria. We’ve got a lot of players.”