Super Eagles Manager Rohr has hinted that the omission of home based players from his squad is due to lack of enough fitness and based on picking the best to represent the country.
Rohr has been criticised for not giving players based in the domestic league enough opportunity in the Super Eagles since he became the manager back in 2016.
Only Ikechukwu Ezenwa and Ifeanyi to are the only players from the local league in the Super Eagles squad for Wednesday’s 2021 African Cup of Nations qualifiers against the Squirrels of Benin Republic at Godswill Akpabio Stadium.
President of the Nigerian Football Federation, Amaju Pinnick said the Federation will domesticate the German’s new contract and asked him to include more players from the local in the senior team sqaud in the nearest future.
In his reaction to the statement of the NFF boss, Rohr explained that he will only work with the best players that are available for selection and won’t select players because the officials wanted him to.
He added that late kick off the 2019/2020 Nigeria Professional Footbal league season is also one of the reasons the players missed out of his sqaud.
“He didn’t speak on it at all, I know he sometimes has a different opinion like me but then, it is football. I never accept it to make a choice coming from the officials, my choice is the choice of sports arguments only, to take the best players,” he told the media.
“Unfortunately, we could not take more players from the local league because they did not play so it was difficult for them to be fit.
“And also the Chan team, unfortunately, did not qualify that’s also a problem perhaps, the missed competition. I’m sure we have good players here and we see one of them coming from Enyimba, Ifeanyi [Anaemena] who replaced Idowu who has a passport problem.
“Instead of calling someone from Europe in the last moment, we took this player and he has the chance like the Olympic squad, I watched them in their first game [vs Ivory Coast] and they have a chance but we can take one of them who will be able to show something.
“I know that some people cannot be happy about my choice but I can tell you it is my choice, it is always honest.”He said.
