Pinnick reveals what he told Victor Osimhen about his outburst against Finidi George

Former President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Pinnick, has revealed that he reached out to Victor Osimhen following the Napoli striker’s recent outburst against former Super Eagles coach Finidi George.

Osimhen criticized Finidi on social media after the coach questioned his commitment to the national team when injury prevented him from participating in Nigeria’s World Cup qualifiers. In Osimhen’s absence, Nigeria suffered two disappointing results against South Africa and Benin Republic, which ultimately led to Finidi’s dismissal.

Pinnick, who was the NFF president when Osimhen first gained prominence at the FIFA U17 World Cup, disclosed that he admonished the player for his disrespectful comments. He emphasised that the incident was unfortunate and noted that Osimhen expressed remorse for his actions.

Pinnick stated: “Let me dwell on Osimhen’s case. It was quite unfortunate. That ranting was so unfortunate. I put a call through to Osimhen and I made him understand that I didn’t like what he did and he spoke to me with remorse. And I told him to channel his remorse to the appropriate quarters.

“Osimhen has always come to me, we discovered Osimhen. It was during my first tenure. In fact, that was the first trophy I won as the president of NFF when he led us to Chile and he was the highest goal scorer.

“I don’t know what went wrong. It was just a moment of madness so to speak. But, that is not the Osimhen that I know. Osimhen comes to me as a very humble boy, I don’t know others and we have maintained that relationship,” the FIFA Executive Council member remarked.