Moses headed for promised land with Nigeria

You wouldn’t expect that making an appearance in the 22,000 capacity Stade Régional de Nyamirambo in the Rwandan capital of Kigali is on the wish-list of most Premier League footballers. But when Wigan Athletic winger Victor Moses steps out there to play for Nigeria in next week’s 2013 African Nations Cup qualifier, it will represent a home-coming of sorts for the 21-year-old.
It’s now a decade since Moses arrived in the UK as an asylum-seeker after his parents – both Christian missionaries - were killed in religious riots in his home town of Kaduna in the north of the country. His father Austin had run his own church and was targeted by Muslim extremists determined to enforce Sharia Law after it was introduced to the region the previous year.
Moses was reportedly playing football with friends when his uncle rushed to inform him that rioters had broken into their home and murdered Austin and his mother, Josephine. With his family fearing for his safety, the 11-year-old was hidden at a friend’s house and arrangements were made for him to move to England a week later.
According to legend, Moses was eventually spotted playing in a local park by scouts from Crystal Palace and joined their youth team at the age of 14. Having initially enrolled a local comprehensive in Croydon, south London, he was then given the opportunity to attend a prestigious public school called Whitgift and scored all five goals for them in a national youth cup final in 2005, with his exploits featuring in an article by Guardian writer Paul Kelso.
The skilful forward went on to represent England at several junior levels as he broke into the Palace first team under Neil Warnock and was sold to Wigan for £2.5 million in January 2010 as the club battled against administration. It was then that Nigerian officials first contacted his agent to see if there would be any chance of Moses considering switching allegiances to the land of his birth - despite his recent inclusion in Stuart Pearce’s under 21 squad.
At the time, Pearce expressed his regret that a change in FIFA’s rules meant appearances for junior sides no longer restricted players from switching to a different country at senior level. Now, after nearly two years of soul-searching, it seems Moses has finally made up his mind.
Despite a last-minute wobble when he was called up by the Super Eagles for two friendlies at the end of 2011 and then failed to turn up, a series of discussions with friends and family back home seem to have finally convinced the player Wigan boss Roberto Martinez last week compared to Lionel Messi. Fellow members of the Nigeria squad who are based in the Premier League including West Brom’s Peter Odemwingie and Yakubu from Blackburn have also played their part in persuading Moses to shelve his ambitions of playing for England as new coach Stephen Keshi tries to rebuild the morale of a damaged nation.
The failure to reach the 2012 African Nations Cup Finals in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea marked a new nadir for Super Eagles fans, but with an in-form Yakubu and Moses joining the likes of CSKA Moscow winger Ahmed Musa and Inter Milan’s Joel Obi, their future seems bright. Yet in the week that England also lost promising Blackpool winger Matt Phillips to Scotland, perhaps the FA will one day end up regretting not having done more to keep hold of Wigan’s star player?

Lure of Three Lions too much for Africa's displaced pride

Home is where the heart is but it seems Victor Moses is also using his head before deciding whether to represent England or Nigeria.

The Wigan Athletic player was conspicuous by his absence from the Super Eagles squad that assembled to play friendlies against Botswana and Zambia last week, despite being given clearance by Fifa to be included by coach Stephen Keshi.

Born in Nigeria but having moved to London at the age of 11 and represented England at every junior level, his no-show had been predicted by his agent Tony Finnigan when I spoke to him on the day the squad was announced.

“I don’t know what Victor will do but if I was a betting man I wouldn’t bet he will be going to Nigeria,” he told me.

“We’ll discuss it but I know he is still hoping to get a call-up for England in the future. Because we’re at delicate stage in his career, he has to maintain the form that he is showing and there is no way I would encourage him to go and play for Nigeria. He could get badly injured and end up not playing for six months so he has to think carefully about what to do.”

Unfortunately for me, no one at the UK nationals wanted the story at the time but, 10 days later, Finnigan has now repeated his views and admitted that Moses is stillharbouring hopes of a call-up from Fabio Capello. As he acknowledges, that is an unlikely scenario given Wigan's perilous position in the Premier League at present but the possibility remains a tantalising one given the exposure playing for England would give his career.

Moses knows that a single appearance for his adopted country would draw the attention of some of the Premier League's bigger clubs and perhaps earn him a move up the ladder, whereas committing his future to Nigeria at this stage would do nothing for his status in the UK. The situation might have been different had his homeland qualified for the African Nations Cup in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea in a couple of months but their failure means he now has until World Cup qualification begins next June to decide.

Should he eventually appear for England, Moses would become only the second Nigerian-born player to represent the Three Lions after John Salako - another alumni from Crystal Palace. But while other countries have embraced the naturalisation of players in recent years (think Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose for Germany or Marcel Desailly and Patrick Vieira for France), England's national team has not been so quick to follow suit.

That could be set to change with a number of African-born players currently involved in the youth set-up, including Crystal Palace's Ivorian born Wilfried Zaha and West Brom's highly-rated striker Saido Berahino, who arrived in Birmingham as a 12-year-old asylum seeker from war-torn Burundi. Meanwhile, Feruz Islam will join Chelsea in the summer having been groomed by Celtic's youth academy and the Somalian-born midfielder is expected to become the first African-born player to represent Scotland.

So while his decision to turn his back on the country of his birth for now was a risky one, Moses may end up being the trail-blazer for a new generation of immigrant footballers.

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