The Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) has shifted the 2015 Africa Under-17 Championship qualifying game between Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets and Gabon by 24 hours.
The game originally scheduled to take place yesterday will now hold today following a late visa issuance, and refusal to allow the Nigerian team fly into Gabon from Lome, Togo, over alleged fears of the Ebola virus.
Spokesman of the Nigeria Football Federation, Ademola Olajire, confirmed that the Golden Eaglets finally arrived Libreville at about 4.40 pm
yesterday after the Confederation of African Football (CAF) prevailed on the Gabonese authorities to back down on their disingenuous decision following Nigeria’s protest to the continental soccer ruling body over the poor treatment to the Golden Eaglets’ contingent.
“At last we are in Libreville and by the grace of God we are playing our match tomorrow (today) and we remain focused about getting the job done,” affirmed Tayo Egbaiyelo, Golden Eaglets’ secretary.
Today’s match will hold at the Stade Augustin Monedan de Sibang in Libreville with the kick off time fixed for 3:30pm local time-same time with Nigeria.
The Nigerian officials are hopeful that the players would be in their usual element despite the shenanigans of the Gabonese even as Coach Emmanuel Amuneke (MON) remains confident that his charges would be gunning for victory.
The second leg comes up in Calabar in a fortnight with the overall winner earning a ticket to the eight-team tournament to be held from February 15th to March 1st 2015 in Niger and the semi-finalists would automatically qualify to represent the continent at the 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Chile.
Nigeria was runner-up in the last Africa Youth Championship, losing 1-0 to Ivory Coast in the final. The Golden Eaglets, however, conquered the World in Dubai last year to lift the FIFA under-17 World Cup.
No comments:
Post a Comment