The Super Eagles of Nigeria will have to prosecute the away World Cup qualifying fixture against Cape Verde next month without any Premier League player.
The league announced on Tuesday that all its clubs would not release players to travel to countries on their ‘red-list’ on which Cape Verde is named.
However, The Heritage Times checks revealed that the affected players, including the quartet of William Troost-Ekong, Ogenekharo Etebo, Wilfred Ndidi and Kelechi Iheanacho will only be allowed to fly down to Nigeria for the first World Cup qualifier against Liberia on September 3 because Nigeria is not on the Red List.
The situation may well explain the delay in the release of the list of invited players for the World Cup qualifiers.
A possible solution would have been for the British Government to grant quarantine exemptions for players, but that was hurriedly displaced for commitment to protect public health.
And last season, world soccer governing body, FIFA granted clubs dispensation not to release players where quarantine was an issue.
Recall that several players like Sadiq Umar were blocked by their clubs from honouring AFCON qualifiers against Benin and Lesotho in March due to Coronavirus protocols in Europe.