Captain of fifth-tier English side, Gateshead football club, has slammed ex-Everton and Super Eagles forward, Victor Anichebe, after they narrowly missed out on promotion, Soccernet.ng reports.
The 37-year-old in his playing days donned the jerseys of several clubs in the English Premier League like Sunderland, Everton and West Bromwich Albion.
Anichebe is currently worth around $14m and was rumoured to be interested in buying the club. The 11-capped retired Nigerian attacker even spoke with players, recruitement staff and coaches of the club in the dressing room several times, discussing promotion while he hadn't officially acquired the club.
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The club captain, Greg Olley, put all the fault on the takeover process, claiming it made the players, staff, and coaches lose focus on what truly mattered.
“The takeover situation has been lingering over us for four or five months now. We were told it was going to be the fastest takeover in football history, which obviously if you hear rumours of a takeover your interest spikes.
“The club managed to hide all of that and no-one really found out until a month ago and you talk about contributing factors why players aren’t playing well, why the club’s not thriving, it’s a massive factor.
“After two or three months of hearing whispers and it’s still not happened, you’ve got new owners bringing lads in, speaking to players and you’ve got the people at the top right now trying to potentially stay on,” the attacking midfielder said in quotes revealed by The Sun.
“You hear so many rumours and potentially being lied to about what’s happening or is it going to happen soon.
“To then, the new owner coming into the changing room when he hasn’t officially taken over, talking to us as a team, saying what he expects, what he wants – but the fact of the matter is he hasn’t taken over yet so how has he been allowed to come in, unsettle the dressing room, to then talk about who he is wanting to keep on next year, who he wants to build around?
“There has almost been a little bit of a divide in the camp until the last few weeks when we’ve tried to resolve it and bring us all back together. It’s been tarnished for a while, for a few months,” the 29-year–old concluded.
