Sadiq out of Super Eagles AFCON Qualifiers over coronavirus fears

Umar Sadiq’s hopes of featuring in the 2021 AFCON qualifiers against Benin Republic and Lesotho has been quashed, after his club Almeria announced he will not be honouring the invitation due to coronavirus fears, Completesports.com reports.

The Spanish second division club made this known in a statement released on their verified Twitter handle on Friday.

Sadiq, who has been in brilliant scoring form for Almeria, was looking forward to making his debut for the Eagles after he was included in Gernot Rohr’s 24-man squad for the qualifiers.

But Almeria announced there were fears protocols put in place in the club as a result of COVID-19 may have been flouted, hence their decision to stop Sadiq from travelling for the qualifiers.

The statement translated from Spanish to English reads:”Due to the pandemic crisis that we are experiencing, due to the sars-cov-2 virus (COVID-19) and thoroughly evaluating all the impacts, we believe that the sanitary, security or bureaucratic conditions are not met, so that our player Sadiq Umar present himself to the call-up of the Nigerian national team.

“Therefore, based on article 3.1b of Annex 1 of FIFA RSTP, we have notified the player not to appear at the aforementioned call.”

Sadiq is the latest player that will miss this month’s games after Samuel Kalu  (injury) and Moses Simon (travelling restrictions in France over COVID-19) were ruled out.