NSC orders Eagles back to Abuja
Super Falcons’ preparation for the African Women
Championship could be thrown into jeopardy as
they are set to be ejected from the hotel where
they are camping.
A source in the Nigeria Football Federation told
our correspondent that the management of the
hotel had warned the soccer body that the senior
women national team might no longer be allowed
to use the facilities due to backlog of unpaid bills.
The source said that NFF’s debt to the hotel is
so huge that the owner has now come under
pressure to throw the Falcons out.
The source who is a top official of the federation
said that the football body’s financial difficulty
was biting so hard and it is now struggling to
meet its financial obligations including the
payment of the salaries of its staff. “It hurts me
that there is no money to manage the programme
of the federation now and people are busy playing
politics,” the official who sought anonymity said.
“We are just managing to see that those girls
feed, we even owe the hotel where they are
lodged. The officials of the hotel are still indulging
us because of the long term relationship we have
had with them; we owe even the referees a lot of
money” Meanwhile, the National Sports
Commission has ordered the Super Eagles to play
their remaining AFCON qualifiers in Abuja.
A source said the NSC has mandated NFF to
bring all the matches back to Abuja due to the
bad state of the UJ Esuene Stadium in Calabar
which had served as the venue for their home
matches for close to two years. However, a top
NFF official who sought anonymity also told our
correspondent that security challenges and
financial state of NFF could scupper the decision.
“The cost of running matches in Abuja will be
high and NFF is broke. If we have to play our
matches in Abuja it will mean that, we are going
fuel the generator so that we can have light at
the stadium, which is going to be a huge
challenge for NFF at this point.
“Again, the security challenge is a problem; no
one will want to come out to watch the match
except there is a strong assurance that people
will get maximum security. But that will take a lot
of time and we do not have time to play around
with” the source told New Telegraph.