11 February 2002
Super Eagles' defender Celestine Babayaro may have played his last match in the Super Eagles if the team's present technical crew takes Nigeria to Korea/Japan World Cup later in the year.
The Chelsea of England player who only made a return to Eagles in this year's Nations Cup tournament after falling out of favour with Nigeria Football Association (NFA) over flight ticket refunds, refused orders to dress up for Eagles' third place match against Mali last Saturday.
Babayaro who has been sitting it out on the bench for in-form Ifeanyi Udeze could not condescend playing a third place match and aptly demonstrated his resolve when he declined coach Shaibu Amodu's directive to dress up.
Udeze bagged a red card in the semi-final match against Senegal and Amodu had wanted Babayaro to fit in for him, but the defender who has been grumbling on the bench since the tournament began, simply turned down the offer.
As a result of Babayaro's attitude, Justice Christopher was drafted into the position with the coaching crew vowing to blacklist the Premiership player in future for indiscipline.
A camp source who disclosed this to THISDAYSports, deplored Babayaro's attitude and warned that the defender may have ended his career in the national team if the present technical crew remains.
Babayaro played only one match (against Mali in the prelims) when Udeze was recuperating from a head collision injury sustained in the previous match against Algeria, and the coaching crew was not too impressed with his performance.
"Can you imagine Babayaro declining to play last Saturday's match because he feels too big for it. He is angry that he did not feature in the earlier matches. But you saw him in the match against Mali. Did he perform better than Udeze? I can't understand how some of these small boys bloat themselves," the source further said.(ACONS)
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