Pictures of the Falconets sleeping on the floor at the Istanbul airport surfaced on social media with fans blaming the NFF for negligence.
By Jeffrey Agbo
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) on Wednesday said Nigeria’s U-20 Women’s team, Falconets, had problems with their transit visas which led to travel difficulties.
The team was knocked out of the World Cup in Costa Rica by The Netherlands in the quarter-finals.
Pictures of the Falconets sleeping on the floor at the Istanbul airport surfaced on social media with fans blaming the NFF for negligence.
NFF spokesman Demola Olajire in a statement said the Falconets overstayed for 24 hours in Istanbul due to booking problems.
Olajire also reported Mohammed Sanusi, General Secretary of the NFF, as saying that the Falconets’ tickets were booked by FIFA and not the federation.
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“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 to take the players and officials to a hotel inside the town, but this was not possible,” Sanusi was quoted to have said.
The NFF spokesman added in his statement that Sanusi said the Falconets were moved to a sleeping area at the airport after they were informed that Nigeria had been removed from the list of countries whose citizens were issued visa-on-arrival in Turkey.
“This situation has nothing to do with NFF, who had made arrangements to receive the team in Abuja before the complications in travel arrangements,” Sanusi explained.
