Samson Siasia, the head coach of the Nigeria U-23 men’s football team at the 2016 Rio Olympics, has refuted Mikel Obi’s claim that he paid for the fight tickets that took the team to the competition.
In a recent chat on a podcast with Peter Crouch, former England striker, Mikel claimed he funded the team’s journey from their camp in Atalanta, US, to Manaus in Brazil for the Olympics.
Mikel said “somebody was sitting on top of that money, didn’t release that money”, and he had to intervene after arranging for a new plane with Siasia.
The former Chelsea midfielder then added that, nine years later, he has not received a refund from the administrators.
Reacting to Mikel’s claim in an interview with Calistus Ebare of the African Independent Television (AIT), Siasia challenged his former trainee to present the receipts of the payments.
The coach said Delta Airline flew the team to Brazil “for free”.
Siasia added that Mikel stepped in to settle some bills at the hotel, but not the flight to the competition.
“Mikel didn’t pay for any flight. When we had some issues in the hotel and we needed to settle some bills, I think he did pay for some of the hotel bill. But the flight, he didn’t pay for it. Delta Airline flew us to Brazil for free.
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