The Nigerian Olympic Footballers teams are stuck in Atlanta (having
less than 36 hours before their opening football match) with the charter
airline hired to fly them on the last leg of their journey refusing to leave
until they have been paid.
Nigeria are due to face Japan on Friday (at 1am GMT) in
Manaus but a “logistical mix-up” is posing a threat to their plans.
According to BBC, “The Nigerian government [sports ministry] is responsible for
booking the tickets for the team to travel but we heard there is a logistical
mix-up with payments,”
“The money paid by the ministry for the charter flight did
not hit airline’s account on Tuesday so they refused to fly the team to
Brazil.”
The hitch in the transfer of funds is being blamed on
currency conversions via various bank accounts.
“It is a cumbersome exercise but they should have started the
process much earlier, which NFF was pointing out. This issue has nothing to do
with the NFF,” the source explained.
Inside the squad, the picture is not clear when they will be
leaving. One of the players told the BBC,
“We’ve been told to
get ready to fly out in few hours but that’s been the story since last week.”
Nigeria are in the same Group B as Sweden, Colombia and Japan
and won gold in 1996, the first team from Africa to claim the Olympic football
title as well as finishing second in 2008.
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