The chairman of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Technical Committee, Chris Green, has revealed that they decided to leave out home-based players for next month’s international friendlies, because of shortage of funds.
This week, the NFF released a 26-man squad for the Mali and Luxembourg fixtures, with only Sunshine Stars’ goalkeeper, Ikechukwu Ezenwa, from the domestic scene.
There has been serious criticisms from the media and fans ever since and Green has now assured that local players are still part of the development plans of the national team.
“The challenges of funds before the NFF forced us to settle for the foreign players,” Green told Abuja-based television ITV via telephone.
“The NFF is broke and do not have funds to organise training camp for the home-based. With the foreign-based players, cost of transporting players [mostly based in Europe] to France and accommodation will be less burden.
“We need to overlook sentiments in matters of who is invited to the Super Eagles so far such person is a Nigerian.
“Either home based or foreign based player, everyone deserves a chance to play for his country at the senior level. We are aware of the quality and talent in the domestic league and we have big plans for them.”
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