BEVERLY HILLS, March 28, (THEWILL) – Gernot Rohr, the German coach of Nigeria’s senior men’s national football team, the Super Eagles has outrightly thrashed the positive COVID-19 result that ruled out Nigerian winger Alex Iwobi from the TOTAL African Cup of Nations AFCON qualifying fixture against the Squirrels of Benin Republic on Saturday at the Charles de Gaulle Stadium in Porto-Novo.
In confirming his confidence that the 24-year-old will feature in the Super Eagles’ final Group L tie against the Crocodiles of Lesotho on Tuesday evening at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos, he expressed his opinion about the suspicion in the Nigerian camp that the result was compromised.
Iwobi, who is a graduate of Hale End, Arsenal’s Academy for developing young talents, was originally in the starting lineup for the successful tie against the Béninoise but he had to be replaced at the last minute, when the news of his positive result broke, just before the team headed to the stadium.
It would appear that the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) are not convinced about the authenticity of the outcome and suspect foul play. This was apparent in the very direct reaction of Rohr, when the coach opened up to ESPN journalist Colin Udoh after the match.
Udoh posted on Twitter that reacting to the issue of Iwobi’s test results, “Gernot Rohr has told me that although Everton’s Alex Iwobi tested positive for COVID on arrival in Benin, he believes the result is “fake”. A second test has been taken and result due soon. Rohr tells me he’s confident Iwobi will play on Tuesday”.
Coincidentally, there has been radio silence from the NFF, the official media representatives of the Super Eagles and the medical team of the squad at this time as none of them have yet made an official statement on Iwobi’s test result. The rationale may be that they intend to get a second medical confirmation on their own to validate the result that came back positive for Iwobi only and no one else in the entire squad, which can be a red flag on its own.
Iwobi, who started as a youth international for England, with whom he won the Victory Shield in 2011, decided to play senior football for Nigeria and made his senior debut for the Super Eagles in October 2015 as a substitute for Ahmed Musa in the 57th minute of a 2–0 friendly defeat to DR Congo in Visé, Belgium. Since then, he has been capped 22 times for the Super Eagles in a consecutive stretch until he missed his first match on Saturday against Benin Republic.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
