By John Essien
Nigeria’s Head Coach Gernot Rohr, has expressed worries over the refusal of some clubs to release Super Eagles foreign-based players to camp early ahead of next year’s African Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament.
Rohr had reportedly received a call from Scottish club, Rangers seeking for the late arrival of Joe Aribo, Leon Balogun and Calvin Bassey for the tournament in Cameroon.
Rangers are hoping to have the Super Eagles players available for the Old Firm derby against Celtic on January 2, before they depart for the international assignment that will start later that month.
Aribo and Balogun are key players in the Eagles fold and have been invited for their 2022 Fifa World Cup qualifiers against Liberia and Cape Verde on November 13 and 16 respectively.
“Somebody called me from Glasgow already. They have the derby Rangers vs Celtic on the second day of January and asked if we can let the players play.
“We have a lot of problems to prepare the team, but I think we will have most of our players at least 10 days before,” Rohr said.
Nigeria will first aim to end the second round of the World Cup qualifiers as Group C leaders. Progress will see them advance to the play-off round.
