Chelsea hand Babayaro ticket to fly
Chelsea have paid for Celestine Babayaro to fly to Nigeria for a World Cup qualifier as a "goodwill gesture" aimed at ending the dispute between him and his national association.
Babayaro had warned that he would not play for his country again as he was owed thousands of pounds in unpaid expenses for past flights to and from international duty.
He did not join up with the Nigerian squad a fortnight ago for their African Nations' Cup qualifier against Zambia and so was not eligible to play in Chelsea's game at Arsenal.
The Nigerians promptly called up Babayaro again for their qualifying game against Sudan this weekend, thereby ruling him out of the Blues' FA Cup fourth-round tie at Gillingham.
With attempts to get Fifa to act as mediators having failed, Chelsea have this time agreed to pay for the left-back to join up with his national squad in a bid to bring the matter to an end.
Chelsea assistant manager Gwyn Williams said: "Chelsea have offered, on this one occasion, to pay for his expenses to go to Nigeria to sort out his problems.
"We have been co-operating with the Nigerian High Commission to bring this matter to an end."
However, it may be that the thorny issue of unpaid expenses could prove harder to solve than Chelsea had hoped.
The Nigerian FA have reportedly denied owing Babayaro any money, with one official quoted as saying: "We have received a fax from Chelsea informing us of Babayaro's arrival for the match against Sudan.
"We believe that whatever misunderstanding there is between the player and the Nigerian FA will be resolved on his arrival."
Chelsea would ideally like Nigeria only to call up Babayaro on the most important occasions, in order to ensure he is available for his club more often.
Whether that will be possible remains to be seen and Nigeria have further competitive games this season against Zambia and Ghana in March, Sierra Leone in April and Liberia in May.
