The Group B Match Day 4 fixture in the 2022/2023 CAF Confederation Cup group phase involving Nigeria’s Rivers United and DC Motema Pembe of Congo failed to hold on Wednesday.
Sporting Tribune reports that the match scheduled for the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium in Uyo did not hold because the Congolese side failed to show up.
Players and officials of the Port Harcourt-based Nigerian side, as well as the match officials, security officials, media personnel and several others, waited in vain for the visiting side.
The match officials later called off the match when they had waited for several minutes after the game’s scheduled 5 p.m. kick-off time.
Charles Mayuku, the Media Officer of Rivers United, later told newsmen that the match was called off by the competition’s organizers, the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
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He said news of the cancellation came via an electronic mail (email) from CAF.
”We got an email from CAF stating that the match would no longer be holding because the visiting side were yet to leave Congo for the match.”
Mayuku said CAF also informed Rivers United that the match would either be rescheduled or not after it had received all details regarding it.
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Reports from the secretariat of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in Abuja however stated that the visiting side’s failure to arrive could have been a result of visa hitches.
An official, who pleaded anonymity, said the hitches were as a result of the Congolese side’s intention to procure entry visas for members of their delegation on arrival in Nigeria.
”Maybe they could not leave because they had no entry visas. But, this was a problem they brought upon themselves.
”They never wrote to us regarding that. We could have obliged them with that, by getting the relevant authorities to do it for them. But these things are done well in advance,” he said.
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