18th February, 2022
Nigerian striker Odion Ighalo said he left his former club, Al Shabab because the club denied him the opportunity to play at the 2021 African Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
Ighalo told ESPN that Al Shabab were supposed to issue him an exit visa to allow him to travel to Cameroon, but did not do so.
He said “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.
“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.”