Former Super Eagles captain John Mikel Obi has disclosed that he personally funded the flight for Nigeria’s U-23 football team to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In a recent episode of The Obi One Podcast, Mikel revealed that the team, which ultimately won a silver medal at the tournament, was stranded at the airport for a day before he stepped in to resolve the situation.
During the podcast, Mikel also addressed the issue of African talents who are reluctant to represent their home countries while hoping for opportunities from other nations. He urged African football federations to establish more efficient structures to support and develop their players.
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“When I represented my country at the Olympics in Brazil, we had to fly there, but we waited from morning till night with no plane available. I ended up paying for the flight myself to get us to Brazil. There were times I also had to cover the cost of hotels, and sometimes the accommodations were so substandard that they were practically uninhabitable. While the players do have their faults, the football associations need to get their act together and ensure that the right people are in place to manage the game effectively,” he said.
He lamented that corruption is one of the major issues plaguing football in Africa, revealing that some officials are prone to misappropriating resources meant for athletes.
In a previous episode of the podcast, Obi had also advised foreign-born players seeking international call-ups not to view their country of origin as a secondary option.
“I’ve talked so much about players not representing their African roots. We’ve held meetings with these kids, with their parents and said, ‘Listen, you are Nigerian, your dad is Nigeria, your mum is Nigerian, why don’t you represent your fatherland, Nigeria? We wanna play for England, France, whatever it is, and then they wait, and then they keep waiting and keep waiting. When they get to 25 or 26 and they don’t get a call up from England then they call Nigeria. We shouldn’t be treated as second options. We’re not second option,” he said
