Friday, 10 May 2013

We betrayed Rashidi Yekini - Ndubuisi Okosieme


RASHIDI YEKINI
FORMER Nigerian international Ndubuisi Okosieme has lamented the way former players are being treated in the country, just as he bemoaned the poor organisation that attended the first year remembrance of Rashidi Yekini last weekend.

Okosieme, a member of the silver-winning Green Eagles team to the Maroc’88 African Cup of Nations spoke with Tribunesport by phone.


“It is shameful the way former players are being treated in this country, when they have problems, everybody just turns away, personally, I am not happy,” Okosieme said.

The winger, a member of the Flying Eagles squad that won the bronze medal at the 1985 FIFA U-20 World Cup in the defunct USSR, was speaking against the background of the poor organisation that attended the first year remembrance of Rashidi Yekini in Ibadan last weekend.

“I am surprised, I am just hearing from you,” Okosieme had reacted to Tribunesport’s inquiry to know why he was absent from the memorial programme organised for Yekini, his former team mate in the Super Eagles.
Another former international, Samson Siasia had bemoaned the poor attendance of the book launch that preceded the football match in honour of the late former African Footballer of the Year.

Okosieme, who now runs a soccer academy in Benin City, said he would have loved to honour his Super Eagles mate of three years but never got to know about the programme. ‘’The last thing would have been to honour him,’’ he said. 

Recalling his days with Yekini from 1986 to 1989 in the Nigerian national team, Okosieme said: ‘’I met him in the national team in 1986 and he was a fantastic player; he was a player you could look up to for the difference anytime a match was too tough.’’

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