August 24, (THEWILL) –Â In another case of poor logistics, Nigeria’s Under-20 national team, the Super Falconets, had to endure a 24-hour wait at the Turkish airport on their way back from the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup with the majority of reactions accusing the football administration of neglect.
In response, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), has listed a number of reasons for the discomfort the ladies endured, including putting their inability to obtain transit visas for the team at the Istanbul Airport on FIFA.
The NFF General Secretary, Dr Mohammed Sanusi, said, “The NFF did not book the team’s tickets from Costa Rica; FIFA did. FIFA also did not envisage the hitches that saw the team delayed for more than three hours in Bogota, and another one hour in Panama. By the time the team got to Istanbul, the flight to Abuja had left. Our officials pleaded for compassionate transit visas so as to take the players and officials to a hotel inside the town, but this was not possible as they were informed that Nigeria had been removed from the list of countries whose citizens were issued visa-on-arrival in Turkey.
“The airline then took the team to a sleeping area at the airport and gave them tickets to have meals every five hours. This situation has nothing to do with NFF, who had made arrangements to receive the team in Abuja before the complications in travel arrangements.”
In order for the squad to be permitted to travel through Germany, the NFF had pleaded with FIFA, the sport’s global governing body, to intervene with the German Embassy and award the team transit visas prior to their departure from Nigeria, but were unsuccessful in that bid.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
