Fifa clearance may stall Sam's switch
by George Akpayen 08 November 2012, 09:37
Sidney Sam's hope of playing for Nigeria so soon may have to wait, supersport.com can report.
Having featured for his country of birth, Germany, at Under19, 20 and 21 levels, the Bayer Leverkusen man will have to be cleared by the world soccer governing body, Fifa to play for Nigeria.
Supersport.com was made to understand that the 24-year-old will have to indicate through writing to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) that he wants to agree to an international switch.
The Nigerian FA will then commence to make a formal request from Fifa with Sam's letter has evidence.
Nigeria head coach, Stephen Keshi said he will be glad to have the process started immediately.
"I'm just the coach but I'm excited to have such a player commit to play for us. It will be good to start the process of completing his switch immediately.
"It's good the FA has gone through this same experience in the past (for Victor Moses and Shola Ameobi)," he said to supersport.com.
Last year, Nigeria had to go through same process for Moses and Ameobi, who had both played for England youth teams, before they were cleared by Fifa last year.
Sam is, however eligible for Nigeria owing to Fifa's removal of age limit for players who had already played for a nation at youth level which is stated in Article 18 of the world soccer apex body's statute.
It is now doubtful that the former Hamburger SV player will feature for Nigeria at next year's Africa Cup of Nations.
