Newly invited England international defender Fikayo Tomori recently revealed that he wasn’t contacted by the Nigeria Football Federation ( NFF) before his decision to commit his international future to the senior national team of England.
Tomori in an interview with Germany based Nigerian journalist Oma Akatugba said he wasn’t invited by Nigeria before his decision to represent England.
However coach of the Super Eagles Gernot Rohr on the 1st of October in an interview with the BBC revealed he spoke with the Chelsea defender around same time he spoke with Tomori but he requested to be given time to mull over the decision.
We gathered Rohr got his number through his close friend Ola Aina who also represented England at youth level before switching to Nigeria and played at the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations. Tomori’s relationship with Aina was also mentioned by Rohr in same interview with the BBC early this month.
“Tomori is a very good friend of our player Ola Aina (ex-Chelsea and England youth international) and he said he does not want to discuss this for now”, Rohr told BBC in October.
“We have to focus on what we have and not lose focus about what people say all the time.”
Rohr’s statement came before he was called up to the senior national team of Nigeria. Owngoalnigeria.com can also exclusively reveal that talks were first held with Tomori while he was at Derby County and he showed interest in switching allegiance from England but things took a different turn when he broke into the squad of Chelsea.
His rise to the position of a regular at Chelsea was largely responsible for his change of heart as he fancied he will get a call up to the senior national team of England and not because he wasn’t contacted by Nigeria as he claimed.
The decision is one he took for the good of his career as well due to the fact that players of the senior national team of England usually get good deals and he is close to sealing a contract extension with Chelsea.