From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has petitioned God to spare the players invited to prosecute the two-legged Africa Nations Cup (AFCON) qualifier encounter between Republic of Benin and Lesotho from both injury and COVID-19 pandemic ahead of the clash.
Fielding questions from SportingSun in Abuja, the General Secretary of the federation, Dr Mohammed Sanusi, revealed that having tided up all the logistics involved for the match, the secretariat is only waiting for the team’s technical crew to submit the list of invited players for the match.
Asked to bring Nigerians up to speed on the arrangements concerning the match, the chief scribe said: “We are preparing very well. You know that anytime we have a match, the responsibility of the federation is to provide the logistics while the coaches will take charge of the techelical matters.
“On our own, we have done it and only waiting for the technical to submit the list of invited players and good enough, we have been informed that the list will be submitted soon.
“If the coaches do that, we will move it to the technical department for final scrutiny to send letters to the clubs of the invited players after getting in touch with them to secure their approval that they will honour the Invitation.
“The only challenge and of course our prayers is that they should be injury free and not contacted COVID-19. It is a two-legged encounter with the first in Port Novo, Benin Republic on March 27 and come back to Nigeria for the last one against Lesotho.
“We have perfected the logistics involved and working out the modalities to ensure hitchfree encounter from Nigeria to Benin Republic and back to Nigeria,” he said.
