Arsenal of England youngster, Bukayo Saka is still attracting keen attention from top shots at Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), as they aim to win the race in hooking the lad’s international allegiance at full senior level, megasportsarena.com reports.
Although The Gunners’ youngster is already an England under-19 international, top shots at the NFF are keeping pressure on Saka to ensure he switches allegiance and commit himself to the idea of playing for the Super Eagles, instead of The Three Lions.
A credible source in the NFF disclosed that the body’s president, Amaju Melvin Pinnick is still bent on ensuring they win the race for Saka, who became the second youngest Nigeria-born player to debut in the English top-flight when he replaced former Arsenal playmaker, Alex Iwobi after 82 minutes in The Gunners’ 4-1 spanking of Fulham on January 1, 2019.
Pinnick is known to be an admirer of the 18-year-old Saka, who the NFF boss once declared does not need to beg for an invitation to the Eagles, hence his desire to get a switch in allegiance from the winger-cum-left-back, who played competitively for England at U17 and U19 levels, meaning he has to apply to FIFA for a change of association if he finally decides to dump The Three Lions.
While speculation is still rising that Saka will be included in England’s squad to the postponed European Championship, when it eventually holds next year, sources at the NFF believe they now have enough time on their hands to prevail of the whiz-kid to switch his allegiance to the three-time African champions.
This line of thought has now been backed by a member of the Eagles’ technical crew, who said Saka is in a list of England-based Nigerian-born players being scouted by the team’s handler, Gernot Rohr, with backing by the NFF with a view to handing them invitations to the squad; as they will not give up on getting anyone until it is officially clear that the person is beyond them.
The coach told allnigeriasoccer.com : “There’s always hope until it is over but at the moment we are not doing anything because the world is faced with a different challenge, but when the time comes we’ll look into it.
“We look at everybody, there is no specific player that we look at, if they are eligible and their name flags up and they are one-eighth Nigerian we look at them automatically.”
