Frank Onyeka will miss Super Eagles’ World Cup qualifiers against Liberia and Cape Verde next month, after testing positive for coronavirus.
The 23-year-old was ruled out of Brentford’s Premier League tie at Aston Villa, with the club making the announcement on their verified Twitter handle while unveiling their line-up for the game against Villa.
“Frank Onyeka misses out this afternoon after testing positive for Covid-19,” the club announced.
Onyeka, who made his Premier League debut for Brentford in their 2-0 opening day against Arsenal, was included in the 30-man squad unveiled by Gernot Rohr for the qualifiers.
This comes after the Confederation of African Football (CAF) had urged the UK government to exempt African international footballers from its travel restrictions to allow them to travel to next week’s World Cup qualifiers.
Current UK rules designed to limit the spread of coronavirus mean that countries on the British “red list” are unable to call on players based in the Premier League for international matches.
Onyeka has been influential in the middle of the park for Brentford, who have won one and drawn one of their first two league games.
