Stanley Nwabali’s representative, Mohammed Lawal, has shed light on why the Super Eagles goalkeeper left Chippa United, only to return to the club five months later.
Nwabali’s comeback to the Eastern Cape side was confirmed on Saturday, bringing to an end months of speculation about his future after he and Chippa parted ways by mutual consent back in February.
While plenty of theories had circulated about the surprise split, Mohammed Lawal revealed that the truth was far more personal. Speaking to ESPN with the Super Eagles goalkeeper’s blessing, Lawal revealed that Nwabali’s exit in February, and his surprise return five months later, was shaped entirely by tragedy.
In the span of roughly two months, Nwabali lost his grandmother, his father, and his mother. His grandmother passed just before Nigeria’s World Cup qualifier against Benin in November 2024. His father died around the same time, only hours after Nwabali had played in that match. Then, on New Year’s Day 2025, his mother passed away too.
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“It has been very difficult for Stanley,” Lawal said, adding that the public rarely sees past the uniform. “People don’t always know what is going on with these players. They only see them on the field… they don’t know that they are human beings too.”
Rather than go public with the reasons, Nwabali chose privacy, a decision Lawal defended firmly. “These are private matters,” he said. “Not everyone wants to make those things public, and people should respect that.” He was also clear that the split with Chippa United had nothing to do with contract disputes or ambitions of a bigger move: “It had nothing to do with the league, feeling bigger than the club, or receiving offers from elsewhere.”
Speaking of offers, there were plenty, Lawal confirmed, including interest from clubs in Saudi Arabia and England. All were turned down. “Stanley just decided he wasn’t ready to go back into football,” Lawal said. “He needed to step away, grieve, deal with everything, and come back in a better state of mind.”
During his time away, Nwabali sought professional mental health support and stayed in regular contact with Super Eagles head coach Eric Chelle, who Lawal credited with helping the goalkeeper through the process. “He had people who believed in him and gave him the space to heal,” Lawal said, reflecting more broadly on how football often only reckons with player mental health after something goes visibly wrong.
When it came time to return, Chippa United was the natural landing spot, not because of nostalgia, but because of the relationship that remained intact throughout his absence. “The chairman understood his situation because Stanley explained everything,” Lawal said, referring to Chippa chairman Siviwe “Chippa” Mpengesi. Had the exit been acrimonious, he added, the club “would never have welcomed him back.”
For Lawal, the choice to return to a familiar environment was as much about identity as it was about football. A new club, he noted, would only know Nwabali as a goalkeeper. At Chippa, “they understand him,” and that, he said, gives Nwabali “the best chance to get back to the level he was at before.”
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