ACTUALITE |
02.10.2001
`Enfant Terrible` Babayaro flies again with Nigeria`s Eagles
LAGOS,
Chelsea defender Celestine Babayaro will Sunday return to international football for Nigeria in a friendly against Japan, after ten months in a dispute with the national team.
An Olympic gold medallist in 1996, Babayaro has been left out of the Nigerian selection since a World Cup match against Sudan in Port Harcourt in January.
That was two weeks after he stayed away from an African Nations Cup match against Zambia claiming he was owed thousands of pounds in air fares and bonuses from the Sydney Olympics.
Coach Shaibu Amodu told a Nigerian sports paper it took another England-based star Nwankwo Kanu of Arsenal to talk Babayaro round to play for the Eagles again.
Babayaro himself told the paper he has put the dispute behind him and is now looking forward to the friendly match against the Japanese at the brand new Saint Mary Stadium in Southampton.
"I`m not as bad as I have been painted. I just want people to give me my dues, nothing more, nothing less," he said.
Nigerian officials had long been concerned over the man known to Chelsea fans as `Baba`, both over his dispute over airfares and his off-the-pitch conduct.
"Babayaro has failed to show the right attitude and committment to the national team for some time now," said a Nigeria Football Associationofficial last January.
Nigeria`s assistant coach Stephen Keshi added: "Babayaro`s refusal to play for the country is not only unpatriotic, it is also unprofessional.
Even as the "Super Eagles" made heavy weather of qualifying for the 2002 World Cup, the wing back shunned entreaties to help out, allowing an unknown, Greece-based Ifeanyi Udeze, to establish himself in the first team.
Babayaro`s troubles, though, had taken root much earlier during the 2000 African Nations Cup hosted by Ghana and Nigeria when he fell out with the then coach Jo Bonfrere over his life on the fast lane and what Bonfrere saw as a lack of committment to the team.
The 23-year-old defender, first capped by the senior team in November 1995, sparked off more controversy at the championship when a popular local tabloid published a photograph of him at poolside chatting up three young bikini-wearing women.
In England, Babayaro also faced more controversy.
He smashed up his expensive Jaguar in a road crash and stood trial on a rape charge.
The British tabloid The News of the World also carried a story of a sex romp that involved him and Dwight Yorke of Manchester United.
"If they don`t talk about you, you don`t exist," said Babayaro, brushing aside his rash of off-the-pitch controversies.
Despite his problems, Dutchman Bonfrere not only picked the attack-minded defender for the Sydney Olympics in September 2000, he also named him captain.
However, an Ivan Zamarano-inspired Chile outclassed Nigeria in the quarter-final of the tournament with skipper Babayaro getting the marching orders for a second bookable offence.
Following that came the row over airfares and the 10 months absence from the national team.
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