Odion Ighalo was
invited to play for the Under 23 team at the recently concluded Rio 2016
Olympics in Brazil but surprisingly didn’t join the team’s camp. He’s now
revealed that he really wanted to come to the Olympics and that his insistence
nearly caused trouble between him, his club Watford and his club’s chairman
?Gino Pozzo.
According to
Ighalo, he apologizes to Nigerians for not joining up with the Under 23 team
that triumphed at Rio 2016 but he tried all his best and that if the tournament
was in FIFA calendar even his club wouldn’t stop him.
‘Yeah, my club
didn’t allow me to go, i had some issues with them, some problems, i sat down
with the president to discuss with him about going to the Olympics’. Ighalo
exclusively told Lind Ikejis Blog on Thursday.
‘He said no, your
not going to the Olympics you are our top striker, the season will soon start
and we don’t want you to go and get injured and not be able to play for
us at the beginning of the season’ ‘we have big games and we need you’
‘I said no, this
is Olympics, i want to go, for weeks i was angry with the club even my club
manager had to call me but there was nothing i could do as it was not a FIFA
recognized event and was outside the FIFA window” He told LIB.
‘Then they offered
me a new contract, so that was it. I will like Nigerians to know that i did my
best, i tried to fight, i tried to be at Rio but nothing i could do because am
under contract with them and the tournament is not compulsory as it was not
under FIFA’s calendar’
‘If it was under
FIFA’s calendar, there’s no stopping me but as it wasn’t they had every right
not to release me’
This post first
appeared on Linda Ikeji’s Blog. Read the original story here.
No comments:
Post a Comment