NIGERIA U20 national team captain, Musa Muhammed, has said he left the camp of the U23 team with the permission of head coach Samson Siasia last Wednesday.
Goal had reported that the golden boot winner at the African Youth Championship absconded from camp in order to sign a contract in Europe with Siasia expressing disappointment at his action.
Shortly afterwards, Siasia announced his team of 18 players that travelled to Lusaka for Sunday’s All Africa Games final qualifying match against Zambia U23.
The Nigeria Football Federation has already vowed to penalize the player for the conduct.
However, Muhammed said that he had no reason whatsoever to abscond after all he was the first player to resume camp. He told Goal that he had gone to retrieve his passport from the German Embassy which he did under permission.
“It is not true. I’ve been reading in papers that I ran away from camp but it is not true,” Muhammed told Goal.
“I’m surprised, though I was told to keep silent about it but my image is at stake.
“When I came to the camp, the team’s secretary asked me for my passport.
“I told him my passport was not with me but at the [German] Embassy. After two days, he asked for it again and I notified him it was still not with me.
“Even the slip I needed to collect my passport was in my home state in Kano. I didn’t come to camp with it.
“They told me I’m supposed to speak to the chief coach about it, that my passport was not with me. And he told me they needed the passport.
“The chief coach permitted me to go to Kano and from Kano to the Embassy in Lagos to collect my passport.
“They are all aware of my passport problem because they permitted me to go and collect the passport from the Embassy,” he said.
If Mohammed’s defence is anything to go by, the swift decision of the NFF to punish players without thorough investigation will attract a whirlwind of questions about their capacity to address issues surrounding players’ discipline.
The incident of mismanagement of player-related crisis is the second in four months after that of former Dolphins’ star Emem Edouk over his transfer saga in January.