RC Deportivo La Coruna President Constantino Fernandez has insisted that his club has “a plan to keep growing” Super Eagles goalkeeper Francis Uzoho after what has been a turbulent week for the young goalkeeper.
The future of the teenager who was Nigeria’s first choice goalkeeper at the World Cup was put in jeopardy earlier in the summer when Deportivo signed two new goalkeepers, Adrian Ortola and Dani Gimenez while Deportivo’s Sporting Director Carmelo Del Pozo’s unsavoury remarks about Uzoho this week has complicated the situation.
However, club president Fernandez has come out quickly to dissuade his Sporting Director’s comments by insisting Uzoho is a very dear player for Deportivo.
“Today he is one of the three goalkeepers of the first team in the head of the coach and we will see what happens,” Fernandez told @TorredeMarathon
“Some team has contacted me informally to have Francis on the bench, but Francis has to play, he can not be the third goalkeeper or the substitute, no matter how much, he should be in the first team,” he added.
Uzoho is presently with the Development side of Deportivo in the third division and he declined a contract extension shortly before the World Cup, insisting that he wants to be clear on his first team status.
President Fernandez also noted that the club has offered the goalkeeper an “improvement of his contract” and said he does not rule out a transfer “only if it is for Uzoho to play.”
Sporting Director Del Pozo was accused of racism by a section of the club’s fans after his comment on Wednesday where he accused Uzoho and his managers of being ungrateful.
“All these players can not forget what they are and where they were before Deportivo took a gamble on them.
“Some with transfers, others bringing them from another category, others bringing them from Africa where they had no clothes and still came. Everyone has to remember that Deportivo was the club that put them in the window. And that is what most of them are not understanding. And whoever does not understand it will have a problem,” Del Pozo said in a thinly veiled attack on Uzoho.
