Every time Eberechi Eze represents England, a photo of him from nine years ago resurfaces on social media. The attacking midfielder\u2019s dreadlocks are shorter than they are today, but his beaming smile is the same.<\/p>\n
At first glance, there is nothing special about the image of Eze, who is standing next to Fulham\u2019s then-Arsenal midfielder Alex Iwobi. But look closer and you will spot the badge of Nigeria\u2019s Football Federation (NFF) on the polo shirts they are wearing.<\/p>\n
sigh https:\/\/t.co\/31Fv9ydTKX<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/rmOLkrcO88<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 funsho (@nwoguuu) October 15, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n In March 2017, Eze was invited to a training camp at Barnet, a League Two (the fourth tier of English football) side in north-west London, organised by the NFF in an attempt to recruit players with dual English and Nigerian nationality. Ola Aina and Chuba Akpom were among the others who attended. At the time, Aina and Akpom were playing in the second-tier Championship on loan from parent clubs Chelsea and Arsenal. The pair had represented England across multiple youth age groups but never made a senior appearance.<\/p>\n Now at Nottingham Forest, full-back Aina has become a key figure for Nigeria \u2014 he started all seven of their games as they got to the final of the previous Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) two years ago but missed out on this edition with a hamstring injury \u2014 while Akpom, at 30, is still waiting for an official senior call-up.<\/p>\n Iwobi, nephew of former Nigeria international Jay-Jay Okocha, played for England at under-16 and under-17 levels before switching allegiance. He made his Nigeria debut when still a teenager in 2015 and is now fourth on their all-time appearances list with 94 caps.<\/p>\n Eze was a slightly different case.<\/p>\n He was in Queens Park Rangers\u2019 youth team when he attended that training camp but a successful loan spell with Wycombe Wanderers in the 2017-18 season kickstarted his career. In October 2018, he was called up by an England youth team for the first time, starting in a 2-1 victory for the under-20s over their Italy counterparts, and never looked back. He got his first senior cap in June 2023 and made three substitute appearances at the following year\u2019s European Championship, helping England reach the final.<\/p>\n While Eze was flattered by Nigeria\u2019s interest and considered playing for them, his preference was to represent England.<\/p>\n The NFF successfully pursued Aina, Iwobi and Ademola Lookman, a forward with Italy\u2019s Atalanta who has arguably been the best player at the AFCON in Morocco, but Eze slipped out of their grasp.<\/p>\n He is not the only player with mixed heritage they have missed out on.<\/p>\n Eze\u2019s Arsenal team-mates Bukayo Saka and Noni Madueke have Nigerian roots, too. Michael Olise of Bayern Munich, who plays for France but was also eligible for Algeria and England, was on the standby list for Nigeria\u2019s AFCON qualifying-phase games in March 2021. Olise was only 19 and playing for Reading in the Championship at the time.<\/p>\n This is how Nigeria tap into their global diaspora \u2014 and the many challenges they face.<\/p>\n This issue is not unique to Nigeria.<\/p>\n Over a third of the players at AFCON 2023 were not born in Africa<\/a>. For example,\u00a0Algeria\u2019s captain for that tournament, Riyad Mahrez, and Sebastien Haller, who scored Ivory Coast\u2019s winning goal in the final, were raised in France.<\/p>\n Brahim Diaz, currently the top goalscorer at this AFCON, and Achraf Hakimi, the reigning men\u2019s Confederation of Africa (CAF) Footballer of the Year<\/a>, grew up in Spain but represent Morocco. The Royal Moroccan Football Federation (RMFF) has scouts in different countries monitoring players who are eligible for them from a young age, but Nigeria\u2019s approach is more informal.<\/p>\n William Troost-Ekong was one of the first players with dual nationality to represent Nigeria. The defender was born in the Netherlands and grew up in London, spending time in Tottenham Hotspur\u2019s academy. He played twice for the Netherlands\u2019 under-20 team. Troost-Ekong was not on Nigeria\u2019s radar until he spoke about potentially representing them in an interview with local media during a loan spell from Groningen to fellow Dutch side Dordrecht.<\/p>\n Troost-Ekong made 22 league appearances for Dordrecht in the 2014-15 season and, after his public comments, Nigeria\u2019s then head coach Stephen Keshi watched them beat Ajax on the campaign\u2019s final day. Keshi rang Troost-Ekong, who was 21, afterwards and invited him to be a part of their squad for fixtures against Chad and Tanzania. Troost-Ekong went on to succeed former Chelsea midfielder Mikel John Obi as captain in 2019 and earn 83 caps before retiring from international duty last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n Though the now 32-year-old\u2019s initial call-up was unconventional, as he points out, recruiting players from the Nigerian diaspora \u201cwas not an established pathway\u201d in those days.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was growing up, we didn\u2019t have players like that,\u201d Troost-Ekong, who was voted player of the tournament after Nigeria made the final of AFCON 2023, tells The Athletic. \u201cPeople have seen what it means to represent Nigeria \u2014 you can look up to Alex Iwobi. Ademola Lookman is a boy from London who became the best player in Africa (the men\u2019s CAF Footballer of the Year award in 2024). That is probably going to open a lot more doors, and if anything, is going to help Nigeria, because you want to have the best players, no matter where they are born, to come home and represent the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n Troost-Ekong forged a strong bond with Aina, Iwobi, Lookman, Semi Ajayi and Calvin Bassey. The group all spent time in London during their childhood and are nicknamed the \u2018Innit Boys\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n Gernot Rohr managed Nigeria for five years after being appointed in August 2016. Tunde Adelakun doubled up as Rohr\u2019s assistant coach and chief scout. The pair, who now work together for Benin\u2019s national team, played a key role in recruiting foreign-born players. It took them a long time to convince Lookman.<\/p>\n Nigeria first approached him shortly after he joined Everton from Charlton Athletic in January 2017. A few months later, he scored three goals for England at the Under-20 World Cup as they won the tournament. In September of the following year, England\u2019s then senior manager Gareth Southgate insisted the forward was part of his plans.<\/p>\n Lookman\u2019s career stuttered as he failed to settle in Germany after joining RB Leipzig in July 2019 and spent time back in England on loan with Fulham<\/a> and Leicester City. He started the process of changing his nationality in 2021 but Rohr was sacked that December. FIFA, world football\u2019s governing body, eventually approved Lookman\u2019s request in February 2022<\/a> and he made his debut, along with the Italy-born Bassey \u2014 who had been called up previously by Rohr \u2014 as substitutes in the first leg of their World Cup play-off final against Ghana the following month.<\/p>\n \u201cIt changed my career and life,\u201d Lookman said in an interview with Arise TV last June. \u201cThis is my home, this is my place, Nigeria. I am the son of the soil.\u201d<\/p>\n Maduka Okoye, who was a surprise omission from the Nigeria squad for this AFCON, was approached by Rohr in 2019. Okoye grew up in Germany, where former Bayern Munich defender Rohr is from. He played for Fortuna Dusseldorf, and Rohr knew some of their senior figures. Rohr contacted the club directly to gauge Okoye\u2019s interest in representing Nigeria. Okoye, now 26 and with Udinese in Italy, became their first-choice goalkeeper for AFCON 2022 but has only made two appearances since, due to the emergence of current first-choice Stanley Nwabali.<\/p>\n Amaju Pinnick was elected as the NFF\u2019s president in September 2014 and served for eight years. He visited players with dual nationality, including Eze and Tammy Abraham, to hold talks about switching allegiance to Nigeria. In September 2017, then-England Under-21 international striker Abraham denied reports he had agreed to switch.<\/p>\n \u201cI can confirm I met the president of the NFF after our last game against Tottenham at Wembley on Saturday, given he is a friend of my father,\u201d Abraham said in quotes reported at the time by the Guardian newspaper in the UK. \u201cHowever, any suggestion I have made a decision to change my international representation is incorrect and wide of the mark. I have informed the (English) FA that I remain available for selection for England.\u201d<\/p>\n NFF closes up on @tammyabraham<\/a>\u2026https:\/\/t.co\/2DnmSp3LNt<\/a> #TammyAbraham<\/a> #Nigeria<\/a> #SuperEagles<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/YLMpW7FTSZ<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 The NFF \ud83c\uddf3\ud83c\uddec (@thenff) September 21, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n The relationship between Abraham\u2019s father and Pinnick is important to highlight. The NFF will often approach a player\u2019s parents first. This is due to cultural practices in Nigeria, and they hope the player\u2019s family will then emphasise the importance of them honouring their heritage.<\/p>\n Abraham spent time in Chelsea\u2019s academy, along with Aina and Fikayo Tomori. The trio remain close friends and if things had worked out differently, could have been playing together at this AFCON. Tomori was born in Canada but is also eligible for Nigeria. However, he never got approached by the NFF. \u201cIt\u2019s not like I wouldn\u2019t have played there, but they never called me,\u201d the Milan defender told the Filthy Fellas podcast in November. \u201cSo I never had a choice to make.\u201d<\/p>\n Abraham has been capped 11 times by England\u2019s senior side but has not been in the squad since June 2022. Tomori was part of that victorious Under-20 World Cup side with Lookman and went on to make five appearances under Southgate, but he has not been called up since Thomas Tuchel started as head coach a year ago.<\/p>\n FIFA only allows players to switch nationalities if they have never represented another country at senior level, as was the case with Lookman, or if they earned fewer than three caps before they turned 21 and none of those appearances came at a major tournament. Real Madrid\u2019s Diaz took advantage of this rule<\/a> to represent Morocco after making one appearance for Spain, in a friendly against Lithuania in June 2021.<\/p>\n There are some signs of progress in the way Nigeria are now operating.<\/p>\n Ryan Alebiosu made his debut in their final AFCON group game against Uganda just over a week ago. The 24-year-old, a defender with Blackburn Rovers of the Championship who featured in The Radar on The Athletic,<\/a> was born in London.<\/p>\n Nigeria were monitoring Alebiosu before he moved to Blackburn in July after he spent the second half of last season with St Mirren in Scotland, on loan from Belgian side Kortrijk. Head coach Eric Chelle contacted the full-back for the first time in August and offered words of encouragement. Injuries to fellow defenders Aina and Benjamin Fredrick opened the door for Alebiosu, who made a strong impression on the coaching staff in starting all of Blackburn\u2019s league games this season before leaving for AFCON duty in mid-December.<\/p>\n One issue that threatens to hold Nigeria back.<\/p>\n Multiple sources The Athletic spoke to for this article, who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships, have suggested that some players are reluctant to represent them because of repeated off-field issues and a lack of professionalism. In November, the squad boycotted training before a World Cup play-off semi-final against Gabon due to a financial dispute with the NFF. The Athletic reported<\/a> that the players and backroom staff had not been paid for previous performances and were frustrated as they felt the federation and national government had broken promises.<\/p>\n