Ominously, the quote then goes on "We are very unhappy about this development - more so when the player had given us his word that he would play in Sydney. Kanu should not work against his country."

Perhaps Kanu had been reading an item which appeared earlier today on the Football Unlimited site, suggesting that the Nigerian Olympic team had "thrown" a warm-up match against Korea (which they lost 5-1) because the team management had refused to pay them $5000 each to play. The item now seems to have disappeared, perhaps the Nigerian FA were displeased, perhaps I imagined it...

While Kanu's brother played in that game, the man himself in fact played for Nigeria's full team in the African Nations Cup qualifying match against Namibia over the weekend, and reportedly set up 2 of the goals in the 4-0 win.