English-born forward Chuba Akpom pledges his international allegiance to Nigeria
Akpom has applied for the necessary documents so he would be able to play for Nigeria.
After years of dragging his feet, English born forward Chuba Akpom has finally pledged his international allegiance to Nigeria.
Born in England to Nigerian parents, Akpom has represented England at youth levels and scored 18 goals in 41 youth appearances from the under-16 to under-21 level.
He has never played for England at the senior level which makes him still eligible to play for the country of his parents.
The 23-year-old was for years courted by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and although he trained with the Super Eagles in Barnet in March 2017, he had stalled in deciding on his international future.
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He has however finally committed his international future to Nigeria and hopes his application to be eligible will be approved soon.
"I've only just recently switched my allegiance, so I've signed the documents and hopefully in the next few weeks it will be approved to enable me play for Nigeria," Akpom told BBC Sport.
"I've been wanting to do that for many years now but not many people know this. It's just been a matter of sorting it out, which is now in a process. I'm looking forward to it.
"It was a personal decision. I'm Nigerian and my whole family feel very Nigerian and it will be nice to represent Nigeria.”
Link up with Iwobi
Playing for the Super Eagles of Nigeria will give Akpom the chance to line up again alongside Alex Iwobi whom he has been friends with since they were kids.
Akpom and Iwobi were discovered together by an Arsenal scout when they were playing for a Sunday League team at the age of six.
"It will also be nice to link up with Alex [Iwobi] again and play for the national team,” the PAOK forward also said.
“We started playing when we was younger together and to make that step to play for the national team together will be amazing."
Iwobi like Akpom also played at the youth levels for England but made his decision to switch to Nigeria earlier. The Everton midfielder made his debut in October 2015 and has made 36 appearances for the Super Eagles.
"I wasn't surprised because at the time he wasn't playing for England, he came out of nowhere and he started playing for Arsenal and from there he just progressed, so I wasn't surprised when he picked to play for Nigeria," Akpom said.
"It was the better decision to make, now he's played in the World Cup and the Africa Cup of Nations. I've always said that I'd like to play with him again for Nigeria, we've always spoke about that.
"We've played together since we was five and six years old, we grew up together. It took me a while to settle down and to get used to the environment in Greece.
"Going to play abroad and in another league has helped me, but I hope to take my career to the next level with Nigeria."
While coming through at Arsenal, Akpom had loan stints at Brentford, Coventry, Nottingham Forest, Hull, Brighton and Sint Truiden.
He finally left Arsenal in 2018 to join PAOK of Greece where he helped them to the Super League Greece title.
The NFF have in recent years intensified effort in poaching foreign-born players of Nigerian descent to switch their allegiances to Nigeria.
The likes of Iwobi, Victor Moses, Suno Aluko, Ola Aina, Tyronne Ebuehi, Leon Balogun, William Troost-Ekong etc are some of the successful attempts.
Tammy Abraham is NFF’s latest target and although the Chelsea striker has once turned down an invitation, his international remains open.
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