John Obi Mikel has slammed the Nigeria Football Federation after he was
\nforced to put up his own money to help his country achieve their
\nremarkable bronze medal at Rio 2016.<\/p>\n
The Nigeria captain organised travel, paid for meals and booked training
\npitches while trying to physically and tactically prepare for games.<\/p>\n
The bronze medal, Mikel explained, was his country’s only moment of glory
\nduring the Olympics amid the troubles he had in Brazil.<\/p>\n
“I think if we talk about the money that I put into the team I think it
\nwas more than [\u00a330,000],” Mikel told Goal. “But we just had to do it.<\/p>\n
“I said to myself, ‘I won\u2019t let this happen. If I can help, I\u2019ll try to
\nhelp’. Sometimes there was no food, sometimes there was no pitch to train
\non, there was no bus to go to the training ground. So all of this was what
\nme and the coach had to figure out, and get money together.<\/p>\n
“I came to the camp. I sat down with the boys in Atlanta and I could see
\nthe frustration, the pain and the anger. Their aim was to play in the
\nOlympics, their goal was to play in the Olympics.<\/p>\n
“And for me being there and seeing what they are going through, they are
\nyoung boys, they want to start their career and someone in the ministry is
\ntrying to crush that dream.”<\/p>\n
Mikel and his Nigeria team-mates’ problems began in the United States as
\nthey trained in Atlanta, where Nigeria won a shock gold medal in 1996
\nafter a thrilling 3-2 win over Argentina.<\/p>\n
He had to work closely on off-the-pitch arrangements with the Nigeria
\ncoach Samson Siasia and told of how, after problems with funding for the
\nflights to the tournament, his team arrived only hours before their first
\ngame, which they remarkably still won against Sweden.<\/p>\n
“There was just no flight provided by the Nigerian ministry,” he added.
\n“We planned to leave three or four days before the tournament, but we
\nended up leaving the day of our first game. It was a difficult one. I
\ndon\u2019t think I have ever seen something like that before, it was crazy.<\/p>\n
“[After our last minute flight] we got to the hotel, dropped our bags,
\ngrabbed some sandwiches, something to eat. A little bit of food. Then
\nheaded straight back to the stadium because we hadn\u2019t even done our
\naccreditations then, so we had to go there and wait in the line, do our
\naccreditation.<\/p>\n
“It was absolutely hectic. I don\u2019t know how we managed to go onto the
\npitch and win that game, it was absolutely mind blowing.”<\/p>\n
The Chelsea midfielder appeared relaxed and happy after returning home to
\njoin up with Antonio Conte’s squad this week as they prepare to face
\nSwansea City on Sunday.<\/p>\n
He was bursting with pride as he reflected on a successful tournament
\nwhich culminated with a 3-2 bronze-medal match win over Honduras.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes I wear my medal around the house, it gets my missus jealous,”
\nhe joked as he showed off his medal. “The kids love playing with the
\nmedal. I am sure one day they will know what this really means.<\/p>\n
“We had lots of problems outside the pitch, but I always told the boys
\nthat you shouldn\u2019t let that affect what we came here to do. We still want
\nto achieve what we came here to do. We still have to represent our country
\nand play for ourselves and our family and the people of Nigeria.<\/p>\n
“So if the ministry don\u2019t want to take responsibility, we have to make
\nsure we play for ourselves and our country. The boys understand that and
\nwe made sure they went along with my message that I kept putting across to
\nthem every single day and we managed to achieve what we did achieve.”<\/p>\n
Goal.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Obi Mikel has slammed the Nigeria Football Federation after he was forced to put up his own money to help his country achieve their remarkable bronze medal at Rio…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n