NFF, agent with ties to Rohr bungle Ugbo's nationality switch as Canada recruit Chelsea product

Published: November 05, 2021

The Nigeria Football Federation have bungled the nationality switch of Chelsea academy product Ike Ugbo.

The Racing Genk striker has completed a change of association from England to Canada, and is in line to make his senior debut for the North American country when they face off with Costa Rica and Mexico in the final round of the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.

Ugbo also qualified to represent England where he was born and world champions France before the Canadian Soccer Association won the race for his services.

The Nigerian Federation held secret talks with the striker at the Super Eagles Crowne Plaza Hotel Ealing ahead of a pre-World Cup friendly with Serbia in March 2018 to gauge his interest in representing the Nigerian national teams and his response was very positive.

Two years later, Ugbo, through his advisers, contacted the NFF to begin processing his documents to change nationality but NFF's Head of International, Dayo Enebi Achor was lackadaisical in handling the request.

The 23-year-old even went on a media campaign where he repeatedly announced that he would love to represent the Super Eagles in an attempt to speed up the process but the Nigerian Federation, Enebi in particular, kept dragging their feet.

It is confirmed that another reason Ugbo changed his decision to play for the Super Eagles had to do with DW Sports Management, an agency with close ties to Nigeria manager Gernot Rohr.

DW Sports Management, a name that keeps popping up in most of the shady dealings in the Super Eagles, attempted to force Ugbo to sign a player representation contract in return for a national team invitation, something that sounded strange to the British-trained player.

Ugbo isn't the first player of Nigerian descent bagged by the Canada Soccer Association in recent years, with Sam Adekugbe, Ayo Akinola and Tesho Akindele choosing to represent the Reds over the Super Eagles.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel