Former Manchester United striker Odion Ighalo has revealed that he left Al-Shabab in January because they refused to let him play for Nigeria at the Africa Cup of Nations. SLInt 😯 MORE:
The 32-year-old was named in Nigeria's final 28-man squad for the tournament, but his club at the time surprisingly blocked the call-up.
Ighalo, who was the top goalscorer at AFCON 2019, has now revealed that Shabab did not organise him an exit visa, he forcing to stay in the country. "I was not happy with them and we decided to part ways because the Nations Cup that I didn't go to caused a lot of bad blood," Ighalo, who has since joined Al Hilal, told"Four hours until my flight [to Cameroon], they had not sent me the exit visa. I called the team manager, and he told me they did not get an invitation. But I had a copy of the invitation that was sent because they copied me in the email.
"We had all this back and forth going on, I changed the ticket to the next day, and then the third day, and they still did not send me the visa. At that point I knew they did not want me to go. "My anger was that they should have told me straight up, not smiling in my face one day and then acting a different way. That is why I decided to leave."