REVEALED: Why Brown Ideye was Dropped From Eagles 2014 World Cup Squad
By Our Correspondent
Forgotten Super Eagles striker, Brown Ideye has opened up on how he missed out on the Super Eagles team to the 2014 World cup in Brazil despite winning the Africa Cup of Nations, AFCON the previous year, Bestchoicesports.com.ng can report.
The former West Brom attacker was one of the unexpected omissions from the late coach Stephen Keshi’s Super Eagles squad to the 2014 World cup, despite his impressive performances at the 2013 African cup of Nations and FIFA Confederation Cup in South Africa and Brazil respectively.
“During my move from Dynamo Kiev to West Brom, he didn’t want me to make that move. He told me he had a better deal fo me. I told him that the only place I was looking at is the Premiership. This was before the 35-man list for the World Cup came out. We started having arguments, I told him if you can’t do this for me I will find another person”
Bobby as he is fondly called formed a blockbuster partnership with Emmanuel Emenike to win the 2013 AFCON title and scored 10 goals in 37 games for Dyanmo Kiev in the 2013/2014 season, whilst pushing for a move to the English Premier league.
His exclusion from the squad, however, caused several debates in the media, with reports from some quarters had it that the experienced forward was dropped due to injury and loss of form.
The 31-year-old forward has now refuted such claims and said his omission from the team was far away from football reasons.
“At that point, I was not really worried because I already heard the rumour that my agent told Keshi to drop me from the team.
“At that moment, I sacked my agent because he was one trying to stop me from moving to West Bromich, so I have to fire him and get a UK agent who made the move successfully and he was upset about it and I guess that was why he did what he did,” he told brila.
He added that he was initially hurt after missing the biggest showpiece, but he was delighted to complete his dream move to West Bromich Albion.
“I was a bit down, but as soon I signed the deal with West Brom, I was kind of relieved and forgot everything about the world cup and was more focused on getting myself ready for the season.” he concluded.
Ideye last played for the Super Eagles back in 2016 in a world cup qualifying game against Zambia in Ndola.
He was part of Nigeria’s 2013 African cup of Nations winning team, he also made 26 appearances for the Super Eagles and scoring 6 goals in the process.