Former Super Eagles forward, Peter Osaze Odemwingie has revealed that there were rumours match-fixing making the rounds in Nigeria’s camp during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.
Osaze who was part of Nigeria’s squad to the Olympics said although he did not care to give it a second thought but there were rumours of agents approaching players to fix matches in an interview on the Super Eagles instagram page monitored by owngoalnigeria.com.
He said “During the Olympic Games, there were some rumours in the dressing room between the players, there were some dodgy things going on but I don’t know if it was true or not because I did not play in the Qualifiers. They were people approaching our players with talks about match-fixing and stuff but I didn’t ask questions”.
The former Stoke player however alluded that there were no signs of that on the pitch as the players gave their all during games until the final.
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“But I would see it on the pitch, everybody played their hearts out, we got to the final of the Olympics. So I dismissed that but that moment I wasn’t sure like how players would be talking about things like this here”.
The coach of the Nigerian team around that time was Samson Siasia who has been banned by FIFA on allegations of match fixing although he has confirmed that he will appeal the decision as he is innocent. The covid19 pandemic has halted his quest to clear his name due to the lockdown in several countries.
Odemwingie went ahead to speak on the state of their camp during the tournament. “That camp was a mess. It was a mess in terms of the FA wasn’t with us, we had problems with kits, how we got to the final of the Olympics, I don’t know but to God be the glory we were happy. We fought hard for the colours of the country and got to the finaTeam Nigeria finished with a silver medal at the event, losing to Argentina in the final after an impressive run beating teams like USA, Ivory Coast and Belgium en route to the final”.
Nath G
