Taribo West
Former Super Eagles hard-as-nails defender Taribo West has
sensationally revealed how he and his national teammates sneaked women –
both local and foreign – into camp during national assignments, Sunday
Punch reports.
The former AC Milan centre-back turned pastor on retirement from
football said it was rampant during his era as a footballer but added he
could only talk about it because he was now a born-again Christian.
“Sometimes we (the players) will import ladies from other countries
and keep them in different hotels. As the competition progressed, more
ladies would keep coming and going. It’s something we all did but my
teammates won’t talk about it. I can talk about it now because I’ve
given my life to Christ,” Taribo told Sports Extra.
“We normally kept the girls in different locations, but once
everyone was asleep, around 2am, we would bring them into our hotel
rooms. It happened in every tournament we competed in, from the Africa
Cup of Nations to the World Cup.
“We had a teammate who the other players waited for to bring in his girl
first, because he always had fine women. Once we saw the shape and
height of his girl, we would call our own boys to go out and negotiate
for girls more beautiful than this player’s own. It was more like a
competition for women amongst us then.
“We had crazy guys in the team but there was discipline, that’s why we had to sneak the ladies into camp.”
Globally-acclaimed for his various unusual and colourful hairstyles
during his playing days, Taribo featured for French side Auxerre before
going on to play for both Milan clubs, Inter and AC.
He also appeared in the top leagues of England (Derby County) and Germany (Kaiserslautern).
Internationally, Taribo won gold at the 1996 Olympic Games with the U-23
side. At senior level, he had 42 caps for Nigeria between 1994 and
2005, played at the 1998 and 2002 World Cups and the 2000 and 2002
Africa Cup of Nations.