Why Birmingham stopped Otabor from Rio Olympics

The management of English club, Birmingham has explained the rationale behind the club’s refusal to release Nigerian striker Viv Solomon-Otabor to the U-23 Eagles for the Rio Olympics billed to begin next week in Brazil.

The club stated that the demands of Nigeria’s pre-tournament schedule and the amount of time the 19-year-old would have missed at Blues proved too problematic.

“To play in the Olympic Games is a fantastic opportunity and we would never stop Viv doing it,” said manager Gary Rowett. “And I know he loves representing his country.

“Naturally we wanted him to go as late as possible and return as early as possible. That’s no different to other clubs whose players are involved.

“Nigeria wanted to take Viv before pre-season and send back to us two months later. That would have been a big thing for Viv as he would then have had to catch up, and to try and get back into the team after that would not have been easy.

“In Nicolai Brock-Madsen’s case, we allowed him to play with Denmark in June, he reported for pre-season with us and he now goes out with them for the Games this weekend.

“I can fully understand Nigeria only wanting to take players to the Olympics who have been in their training camp and obviously it was important for us that Viv embarked on preparations for the season with the Club.

“It’s sensible for them and it’s sensible for us.”

Nigeria opened a training camp in Atlanta, USA, at the end of June and began friendly fixtures on 2 July.

They lost 1-0 to Mexico and defeated a local side Charleston Battery 2-0 before flying to Rio from Miami today.

The Olympic tournament starts on 3 August.

Like Denmark, Nigeria competed in a tournament in South Korea at the start of June.

RipplesNigeria …without borders, without fears

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now