THE Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) on Thursday condemned a report in some sections of the media, including the Cable News Network (CNN), that it cannot fly the Super Eagles to a 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifier against their Zambian counterparts in Ndola on Sunday, October 9.
While accepting that the federation is facing financial challenges in view of the current recession in the country, the NFF declared that it had the faith that things would never get to the point of not being able to get the national team to the venue of a competitive match or championship.
The report in the media had quoted an unnamed member of NFF as saying that the country’s football body was so broke that it could not afford to fly the Eagles to Zambia for the Russia 2018 World Cup qualifier.
Reacting to the report, the NFF, according to a statement made available to Tribunesport by its Director (Communication), Demola Olajire, on Thursday in Abuja stated that it viewed the report as baseless, misleading and despicable, not only against Nigerian football, but also against the Nigerian nation.
The Federation insisted that the report was the concoction of an idle mind and challenged the purveyors of the falsehood to name their source.
It, however, assured Nigerians that it had concluded arrangements on getting players and officials of the Super Eagles to Abuja for a training camp starting on Sunday, October 2, getting the team to and from Zambia and getting the players back to their respective clubs after the national assignment.
It then called for the support and prayers of Nigerians at this time and urged that the players be allowed to focus on the big task of qualifying the nation to the 2018 FIFA World Cup, without so much negative stories and insinuations.
The country’s football body further noted that over the past few months, some persons have made it their business to fabricate unhealthy stories about the NFF and Nigerian football and called on all stakeholders to disregard, henceforth, any report about the NFF that did not emanate from the NFF Communications Department.