‘He’s critically ill’ — Odegbami solicits financial aid for ex-goalkeeper Peter Fregene

Segun Odegbami, the Nigerian football legend, has solicited financial assistance for his ailing colleague Peter Fregene.

Fregene, popularly known as the flying cat or Apo, is a former goalkeeper of the Nigeria national football team. During a career spanning over two decades — from the 1960s to the 1980s — the 77-year-old won the Nigerian FA Cup with both ECN and Stationery Stores.

In a statement on Tuesday, Odegbami disclosed that Fregene is hospitalised in Sapele, Delta state, and urgently needs medical attention and financial assistance.

The 72-year-old former striker said his colleague is “waiting for help to be moved by ambulance” to the Ohara Teaching Hospital.

He said although “Tony Ojesina covered the ambulance costs, more funds need to be paid before he can be moved” to the teaching hospital.

Odegbami also lamented what he described as “the lack of a functional welfare scheme for retired athletes” in Nigeria.

He expressed frustration that retired athletes now have to rely on the goodwill of “Femi Otedola, Mike Adenuga, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Babatunde Fashola, Benson Ejindu, and Allen Onyema to support Fregene’s medical expenses,” adding that they can’t keep burdening them.

Odegbami also appealed to sports enthusiasts to put Fregene in their prayers.

Read the full statement below:

I am frustrated because I am publishing this ‘horror’ picture (a picture of Fregene in hospital bed), wishing I have the capability to do what needs to be done for a colleague without having to resort to yet another public appeal to the same few Nigerians that have, through the years, intervened in the matter of ill-health of a few retired, suffering Nigerian football heroes.

By now, we must have exhausted any remnant of ‘goodwill’ we have with Femi Otedola, Mike Adenuga, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Babatunde Fashola, Benson Ejindu, Allen Onyema, and a few other Nigerians that often came to the aid of a few lucky sports heroes several times in the past.

Even if they have not complained, we are ashamed to go back to them again.

Why don’t we have, or why can’t we set up, even on our own, a simple welfare scheme for active and retired athletes across all sports in the country, to take care of our declining health in old age, long after our sports careers?

Doing so does not require knowledge of rocket science. What are needed are the will, hard work and a few good and committed people of integrity.

The danger now is that the number of retired aging sports heroes languishing in poverty, neglect and ill health is legion already, and growing. Their stories are ugly and shameful.

Government has demonstrated time and again that sport is not a priority. 64 years after Independence they cannot and will not see it differently, period.

So, Peter Fregene is a reminder to us all again. As I look at him lying comatose on a hospital bed in Sapele and sending the suffering he must be going through, my frustration is mounting.

It appears doing something for, and beyond, Peter is a responsibility that ‘fate and metaphysical aid’ seem to have put around my neck. So, we shall see, as our people would say when they do not know what’s coming next.

So, what is the situation with ‘Apo’ now? He is still waiting for help to come in order to be moved by ambulance to the Ohara Teaching hospital, Ohara, Delta State. He has been waiting since yesterday.

I hope Globacom that have been taking care of his every need in the past one year would respond once again and come to his aid.

A friend sitting next to me yesterday as I discussed Peter with his wife on telephone last night, Tony Ojesina, immediately paid for the cost of the ambulance that would convey him there. But he still has other bills to pay before he can be moved.

Fregene was the first-choice goalkeeper for the Nigeria national football team from 1968 to 1971. He was then recalled for the 1982 African Cup of Nations finals. He also represented Nigeria at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.