“They are regretting it” – Amaju Pinnick on Nigerian descent that snub Super Eagles

Former Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President, Amaju Melvin Pinnick has revealed how players of Nigerian descent are regretting not pledging allegiance not the Super Eagles following their AFCON 2023 campaign.

Although Cote d’Ivoire defeated Nigeria 2-1 in the final at the Alassane Ouattara Stadium, Ebimpe, Abidjan, Amaju insisted more players are willing to represent Nigeria now.

Meanwhile, the majority of players are based and/or born in Europe and the 53-year-old shared an interesting story on how he instructed former head coach to pick Ahmed Musa in his 23-man squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

Pinnick had to call Gernot Rohr, who was the Super Eagles coach at the time to ensure the German tactician included his name in the World Cup squad even though the forward was not getting play time at Leicester City.

The Super Eagles forward went on to score twice against Iceland to boost the Super Eagles hopes of going past their first-round group which included Argentina and Croatia.

The former president also said he had no regrets about employing Jose Peseiro as Super Eagles coach before he vacated his position.

“I know a lot of Nigerian-born players in Europe who are regretting not emulating what (William) Troost-Ekong, (Alex) Iwobi, (Ademola) Lookman and others did, opting to play for Nigeria,” Pinnick told ThisDay newspaper.

“You will not believe that after that final in Abidjan, a top Nigerian-born player called me and was full of regrets about not opting to play for Nigeria. He told me that if he had paired Osimhen, there was no way he would not have scored three goals in that final against Côte d’Ivoire.

“One thing that I keep telling these players is that when your club does not treat you well, you have your national team to fall back on. I told that player the story of Ahmed Musa who faced challenges at Leicester City when he had some matrimonial issues.

“Because he was not playing at the club level, our former coach, Gernot Rohr said he didn’t want him in Super Eagles. I said no, you can not do that coach. Ahmed Musa is a national team player who gives 100 percent of his efforts to the country. Because he was not playing did not mean we dropped him from the team.

“At the end of the day, the coach accepted my position and Ahmed Musa featured in that team and became the cornerstone that was initially rejected. He became the hero of our team at the World Cup.

“As a federation president, you must be involved in the affairs of your players, their welfare, and what is happening in their homes. That gives you ideas of what is happening to them psychologically.”