The Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) said a number of factors, including the inability to secure transit visas for players and officials of the U20 female national team, Falconets, at the Istanbul Airport, led to the team having to stay 24 hours at the airport in Turkey on their way from the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica.
The Ministry while reacting to viral pictures of Nigeria’s female football team, portraying them stranded at the airport in Istanbul, said they did not book for the team to travel from Bogota to Panama.
“The Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development and the NFF did not book the tickets. The World Cup is a FIFA tournament. FIFA booked tickets for the team to travel from Bogota to Panama, but for some reasons, the flight to Panama was delayed for three hours. There was another one hour delay at the airport in Panama and by the time the team got to Istanbul, the flight to Abuja had left.
“The NFF officials pleaded that the team be given transit visas at the airport so they could head to a hotel in the town, but this was not possible as Nigeria had been removed from the list of countries granted transit visas at Istanbul Airport. So, the airline took the team to a sleeping area at the airport and handed them tickets to have meals after every 5 hours,” the Sport Ministry said in a statement.
The Sports Minister, Sunday Dare, added that he has personally reached out to the team via telephone and video calls and they will be home bound soon.
For hid part, NFF general secretary, Dr Sanusi Muhammad, in his reaction, said FIFA who book the team’s tickets from Costa Rica did not envisage the hitches that saw the team delayed for more than three hours in Bogota, and another one hour in Panama.
“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.
“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.
Sanusi added that the NFF had implored world-governing body, FIFA, to intervene with the Embassy of Germany to issue the team transit visas before their departure from Nigeria, in order for the team to be able to travel through Germany but added that this did not happen.
On the issue of body-wear, Sanusi said: “The players were handed three sets of green jerseys and two sets of white jerseys, several house-wear types and training jerseys. The players opted to wash only their jersey top (no other stuff) because when the first set of body-wear was sent to the laundry people at the hotel, it returned with some FIFA and NFF badges at the front and names at the back peeled by the machine.”
