Siasia denies Mikel John Obi's claim of paying flight to 2016 Olympics

Photo: Nigeria Football Federation (@thenff)/X

Former Nigeria national team head coach Samson Siasia has denied that former midfielder Mikel John Obi paid for Nigeria's flight tickets to Brazil at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Mikel had made the claims while appearing on a recent podcast hosted by Peter Crouch. The former Super Eagles captain, who called out corruption in the system, alleged that the money was released for their trip to Rio de Janeiro but was not utilised.

"Talk about the corruption again, where a budget is being released by the government and somebody sitting on top of that money didn't release that money."

"And we are all sitting at the hotel about to fly to Rio, and everyone is thinking, how are we going to get there. There was no money to pay for flight there was nothing to do the players was worried."

He went on further to state that those in charge of football in Nigeria had refused to refund him, after top officials diverted the allocated funds.

"I spoke to the coach, said how can we find a plane, we looked for a plan and I had to pay for it. Up to today I haven't been reimbursed my money."

But Siasia, who was the coach of the team, said in an interview with Nigerian journalist Callistus Ebare that the former Chelsea midfielder helped with some hotel bills but did not pay for the flight.

“I think he did pay for some of the hotel bills, but that of the flight from United States to Brazil, Mikel did not pay for that. If Mikel has the receipt to that effect, let him show Nigerians that he was the one who paid.”

The U-23 Eagles ended up winning a bronze medal despite the challenges they faced before the Olympics.