Segun Adenuga says he discovered Paul Ebere Onuachu playing in a Lagos street soccer championship in 2008, took him to Togo to join Liberty Sports Academy and now accuses others of facilitating a transfer the academy later protested to the Nigeria Football Association.
Adenuga, who says he "took Onuachu to Togo. I stood surety for him," told Round Time News he helped arrange the move and that Onuachu was registered at Liberty Sports Academy as Ebere Onuachu. Adenuga said the original arrangement was for the player to remain at the academy for 24 months but that Onuachu stayed for 21 months before leaving and never returning. "I have all the documents to back up my claim," he said.
The dispute crystallized in a formal protest from Liberty Sports Academy dated 16th November, 2021. In that letter, director Tchakala Tchanile wrote that "the academy now deemed it fit to write a formal letter of protest against the manner one of our students, Ebere Paul Onuachu was transferred without clearance from the club." Tchanile added: "we are constrained to write this letter of protest so as to unravel those behind the illegal transfer." Adenuga said the academy later called him after Onuachu was seen playing for Danish club Mydtjyland.
Adenuga also provided a financial detail: he said the academy waived 999,000 cefa and awarded Onuachu a scholarship because of him, and that the academy believed he had collected money from Onuachu. He warned of possible consequences if the case were taken to world football's governing bodies. "If we report to FIFA, it won’t be good for him because there is a clause in FIFA rules that whoever nurtures a player in his developmental age must not be denied his dues when the player becomes a professional," Adenuga said.
The dispute lands while Onuachu is at the peak of his club form. In the Turkish Cup quarter-final against Samsunspor, Trabzonspor advanced on penalties after a goalless 120 minutes; the shootout finished 3-1. Onuachu scored his spot-kick in the shootout, marking his 22nd goal for Trabzonspor this season. The striker had scored in each of his last 11 consecutive matches before the cup tie, a run that has made him central to his club's attack.
The quarter-final shootout also featured a standout performance from goalkeeper Andre Onana, who saved three penalties as Trabzonspor progressed. Club president Ertuğrul Doğan commented on Onana's future after the match: "Onana's career is already established. We like him. I've said this before. He has a certain plan for his career. If the conditions are right, we want him to stay. The final decision will be Onana's." That statement underlines the club's broader concerns about keeping key players amid a busy season.
The tension in this story is twofold. On one hand, Adenuga and Liberty Sports Academy say they have paperwork and formal complaints alleging an unauthorized transfer and financial questions dating back to Onuachu's time as a youth player in Togo. On the other, Onuachu has not been unreachable to the public: he left the academy after 21 months, no further contact with Adenuga is reported, and he has since built a professional profile strong enough to score 22 goals in a season and to convert in a cup shootout that sent his club into the semifinals.
That gap — between an academy's formal protest filed on 16th November, 2021 and a player now delivering decisive goals on a European stage — is the core friction. Adenuga says he helped place the player and that he can show documents; Liberty Sports Academy says a transfer happened without its clearance; Onuachu's current performances make any dispute more than a historical footnote.
The immediate, consequential question is whether the Nigeria Football Association will act on the protest filed by Liberty Sports Academy and, if it does, whether any ruling or claim will have practical consequences for a player whose scoring run and cup exploits have just intensified his profile. That decision will determine whether a protest rooted in a 2008 street championship and a Togo academy can still change the course of a career playing and scoring for Trabzonspor today.
