Austin Eguavoen said he thought about replacing Odion Ighalo from his squad, but CAF rejected their application.
Ighalo has been at loggerheads with his Club Al-Shabab over his release for the African Cup of Nations, which is just two days away.
In another development, the Saudi Arabian Clubs claimed that NFF missed the official deadline to call up the player and won’t be releasing him for the tournament.
However, Eguaveon said, he wanted to end the drama by replacing the 32-year-old striker with Akinkunmi Amoo or Silas Nwankwo of Nasarawa United, but CAF didn’t give approval.
“We spoke, exchange text messages and from his response he is doing everything to come by. I thought of replacing him, I gave a deadline and tried to bring in Nassarawa United striker Silas Nwankwo, a good player no doubt. And also Akinkunmi Amoo but he is not a striker but he can play off strikers.”
“I thought of replacing Ighalo with any of them but what CAF is saying is that it’s only based on injuries, health reasons, that’s the only way he can be replaced so that was what was holding us back.”
“But the federation is putting in all effort way out from here, the young man Odion is also doing his best from there hopefully we will get a positive answer.”
“If it wasn’t for the rules that says it has to be on medical ground maybe we would have just told Odion not to go through that because psychologically we know he is with us but there is nothing we can do but to replace him. But on medical ground he is healthy and we don’t pray bad for anybody.” He told NFF TV.
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