The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) says they are investigating the circumstances that led to Gent of Belgium forward Gift Orban snubbing a call up to the Nigeria U23 team, OGN can exclusively reveal.
Orban who has 14 goals and two assists in 11 games from January following his move from Stabæk was handed a call up to the Salisu Yusuf led team for the U23 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers games against Guinea.
Nigeria drew the first game in Abuja 0-0 before losing 0-2 away in Morocco hence failing to seal a spot at next month Africa Cup of Nations, which is the qualifiers for the 2024 Olympic games in Paris.
The failure of the Nigerian team to score in both games reopened our discussion on the decision of Orban not to honour the call up as he could have probably helped the team in the area of scoring goals. A member of the technical department of the NFF provided answers.
” We don’t know why he didn’t turn up. The club didn’t respond to the invitation but the coaches said one of his representatives was heard saying it’s insulting for him to play for the U23 as he feels he belongs to the Super Eagles. In his words it will lower his marker value. This conversation took place in Abuja”, he told OGN.
” Salisu Yusuf was asked and he said he has no idea why Gift didn’t turn up. We are doing our investigation before taking the next step which could possibly lead to him getting blacklisted from the senior team in the future”, he stated.
OGN however reminded him that the invitation was sent late and hence the decision of the club to deny him the chance to play in the U23 qualifiers. ” It’s not true”, he said. ” If it was a call up to the Super Eagles will the club say no?. This and more we are looking at before taking a decision”, he concluded.
Damian Waziri
