PAOK Thessaloniki forward Chuba Akpom has declared his readiness to switch allegiance to Nigeria.
Akpom was born in and raised in England by his Nigerian parents and represented his country of birth at the Under-16 and Under-21, level, scoring 18 goals from 41 matches in the process.
Since leaving Arsenal for Greece, Akpom has developed to one of the best strikers in the league and helped the club to end their long wait for a league title last season.
The player has once trained with the Nigerian team and has now revealed he is swapping allegiances permanently to the West Africans.
“I’ve only just recently switched my allegiance, so I’ve signed the documents and hopefully in the next few weeks it will be approved to enable me to play for Nigeria,”
“I’ve been wanting to do that for many years now but not many people know this. It’s just been a matter of sorting it out, which is now in a process. I’m looking forward to it.
“It was a personal decision. I’m Nigerian and my whole family feels very Nigerian and it will be nice to represent Nigeria.”
Akpom added that he hopes everything will be sorted on time, so he can link up eith his childhood friend, Alex Iwobi who also dumped the English in favor of Nigeria.
“It will also be nice to link up with Alex [Iwobi] again and play for the national team. We started playing when we were younger together and to make that step to play for the national team together will be amazing,” he continued.
“I wasn’t surprised because at the time he wasn’t playing for England, he came out of nowhere and he started playing for Arsenal and from there he just progressed, so I wasn’t surprised when he picked to play for Nigeria.
“It was the better decision to make, now he’s played in the World Cup and the Africa Cup of Nations. I’ve always said that I’d like to play with him again for Nigeria, we’ve always spoken about that.
“We’ve played together since we were five and six years old, we grew up together. It took me a while to settle down and to get used to the environment in Greece.
“Going to play abroad and in another league has helped me, but I hope to take my career to the next level with Nigeria.”
Akpom has scored twice in three games for PAOK in Greek elite division league.
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