FOOTBALL: Nigeria was denied qualification due to’rejected players,’ according to Amokachi.

Former Nigeria striker Daniel Amokachi has alleged that the country’s 2022 World Cup playoff match against Ghana had “rejected players.”

On Super Sport, Amokachi urged Nigerian football administrators to return to the developmental systems that helped the national team reach greater heights.

The Super Eagles have recently depended heavily on dual-eligible players born in other countries.

Some of the stars who chose to play for Nigeria include Ola Aina, Joe Aribo, Calvin Bassey, William Troost-Ekong, Leon Balogun, and Ademola Lookman.

“We can’t take it away from Nigeria in terms of quality.” Every day, Nigeria is blessed with one immigrant player who is out there playing and who will constantly come up to you and say, “I turned down my birth nation, I want to play for Nigeria,” even if their birth country never looked for them. They won’t even be selected for their birth country’s squads.

“Unfortunately for Nigeria, we’ve thrown away our developmental structure, which helped us win the gold medal at the 1996 Olympics and made that generation so successful.

“Stephen Keshi came in and brought it back to life, and we saw how we won the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations,” Amokachi remarked.

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