Nigeria is determined to see Arsenal youngster, Alex Iwobi, switch his allegiance from England to make himself available for the Super Eagles side.
Iwobi has played for England at age-group level, but was recently called up to the Nigeria Under-23 side their match against Gabon on the weekend.
But having failed to complete the process of changing his allegiance to Nigeria, Iwobi did not feature in the game, although he was able to partake in the pre-match camp.
The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) are now hoping to make the switch an official one, and hope to draught the Gunners striker in for the senior national team’s upcoming friendly match with Bolivia next month.
“As a responsible body, there was no way we would have used Alex Iwobi to play for us in Gabon knowing the implication of such an act,” NFF Deputy Secretary General Emmanuel Ikpeme was quoted as saying.
“The rules are very clear on players or country seeking to switch allegiance from one country to another, so Alex having played for England in the cadet level, there is no way he can play for us in any such level, unless the senior national team, this we are trying to do, luckily for us his parents have been of great help in this regard.
“We all know that the U23 team is like the feeder team for the new Super Eagles we are trying to build, so bringing the young man to be part of this team was done on purpose, now that he has fitted and bonded with the team, our next target is trying to see how we can firm up the paper work with FIFA then invite him to the Super Eagles in our next international friendly, hopefully against Bolivia.”
