The Nigeria U17 team has suffered a huge setback in their preparation for the U17 Africa Cup of Nations, OGN can exclusively reveal.
As first reported by OGN, the team will be leaving for a training tour of Germany but they will be without the services of at least five key players in the team that won the U17 WAFU B championship.
We exclusively gathered that , the team’s result of the Magnetic Imaging Resonance test popularly known as MRI Test has knocked off the entire first choice midfielders of coach Nduka Ugabde.
Their grades were 5 after the test still within the limit of participation at the tournament, which is pegged at grade 6 but the Nigeria Football Federation has a policy that only players within the range of 1-4 will be with the team.
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The step we gathered was taken by the NFF because of the new directive by CAF that says if one player fails the test, the entire team will be disqualified from the tournament. To stay on the path of caution they decided to drop theirs to 4.
Players who are at grade 4 can possibly be grade 5 when tests is done at the tournament, hence the fear that players at grade 5 could go past the limit of 6 if they are allowed to represent Nigeria at the tournament.
Per what we gathered, the technical crew of the team will readmit the affected players after the AFCON if the team picks one of the four tickets to represent Africa at the World Cup. FIFA has a different rule from CAF as they only kick out the affected player and not the team if anyone fails the test.
Damian Waziri
