TheHILL. | SPORTS | March 20, 2021.
Umar Sadiq’s hopes of playing in the 2021 AFCON qualifiers with Benin Republic and Lesotho has been quashed, after his club Almeria announced he will not be honouring the invitation due to coronavirus fears.
The Spanish 2nd division club divulged this in a statement launched on their Twitter handle on Friday.
Sadiq, who has been in superb scoring structure for Almeria, was once looking forward to making his debut for the Eagles after he was once protected in Gernot Rohr’s 24-man squad for the qualifiers.
But Almeria hinted there had been fears protocols put in area in the club as a end result of COVID-19 can also have been flouted, consequently their decision to quit Sadiq from travelling for the qualifiers
The statement translated from Spanish to English reads:”Due to the pandemic crisis that we are experiencing, due to the sars-cov-2 virus (COVID-19) and thoroughly evaluating all the impacts, we believe that the sanitary, security or bureaucratic conditions are not met, so that our player Sadiq Umar present himself to the call-up of the Nigerian national team.
Therefore, based on article 3.1b of Annex 1 of FIFA RSTP, we have notified the player not to appear at the aforementioned call.”
Sadiq, according to Complete Sports is the latest player that will miss this month’s games after Samuel Kalu (injury) and Moses Simon (travelling restrictions in France iver COVID-19) were ruled out.
