Former Super Eagles midfielder Mikel Obi has revealed that he paid for Nigeria’s Olympic football team to fly to Brazil for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Mikel was heavily criticized after criticizing players with dual citizenship who returned to African countries after not being called up by European countries.
However, his statement received a lot of reactions and he came out on Thursday to shed more light on the reason for his statement. During his explanation, he also revealed some of the problems he faced while playing for Nigeria. Mikel revealed that poor planning by the Nigeria Football Federation and the Nigerian Olympic Committee almost prevented the U-23 team from participating in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“When I represented my country at the Olympics in Brazil, we had to get on a plane and we waited from morning to night for a plane to take us to Brazil,” Mikel said in his podcast.
“There was no plane to take us to Brazil because behind the scenes there was an internal fight over who was going to pay the bill.
“The Federation did not want to pay the bill, I think the government released the money but the Federation or whoever received the money refused to release it.
“So we waited at the airport from morning to night, but there was no flight. I had to pay for this flight to bring us to Brazil. And these are small things.

Mikel also said that when he was playing, the NFF sometimes chose poor quality hotels for the players, prompting him to pay for another hotel himself.
“I had to fix my hotel because the hotel they gave us was very difficult to stay in. I had to move to a place more favorable for the appearance of the players,” added Mikel.
Despite Mikel’s revelations, it seems that FKF has passed this stage, as it has been quite solid with its logistics in recent years.