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Shola Escapes Punishment

11 years ago
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Alan Pardew succeeded in preventing Shola Ameobi travelling to the African Cup of Nations, at least in part just in case Newcastle don’t actually sign a striker…

However, the fear remained that the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) could take the matter to FIFA with Article 36 Paragraphs 2B and 5C of FIFA regulations stating;

‘If a player is called up, he must be released to play in the final competition organised by FIFA or a confederation and held in a period fixed/set in the calendar. In this event the period of release shall be 14 days’.

This would appear to leave it clearly open for the NFF to enforce a FIFA ban preventing Shola playing for Newcastle during the period of the African Nations finals.

However, the NFF have announced that they are not going down this route with the General Secretary of the Nigerian Football Federation, Musa Ahmadu, releasing the following;

“We will not be appealing to FIFA to stop Ameobi playing for Newcastle.

There are more important issues than Ameobi. We have players that can do well at the Nations Cup and we will not speak about a player that is not in the team”.

Senegal of course invoked FIFA’s five day rule in the fiasco surrounding Cisse’s non-participation in a friendly against the Niger Republic, meaning the striker missed the defeat against Swansea.

After watching Shola’s dismal performance against Brighton, many of you will be thinking so what, but until I see our new striker paraded in a black & white shirt I won’t be counting any chickens.

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