Football / Sports

Blame FIFA, not NFF, for Falconets ordeal in Istanbul

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), yesterday, absolved itself and the Federal Government from blame over the ordeal suffered by the women U-20 national team, Falconets, who were forced to sleep on the bare floor of Istanbul Airport after missing their connecting flight from Turkey to Abuja.

The Falconets, who were eliminated from the ongoing FIFA U-20 Women World Cup by The Netherlands at the weekend, were supposed to return to Nigeria on a Turkish Airline flight from Costa Rica on Monday.

The players’ ordeal came to the fore, yesterday when pictures of the girls lying on benches and on the floor at the Istanbul Airport flooded social media. Earlier, sources close to the team had accused the NFF of failing to provide basic kits with the Falconets needed for the competition, saying the players were given only three sets of green home wear and two sets of white away wear for a competition that would last three weeks.

He said this forced the players to wash their jerseys by hand after every game and also stopped them from exchanging jerseys with their opponents after each game.

The source added that the girls did not get the official footwear and were also forced to buy their own footwear despite the fact that the Federation has an existing kitting deal with an international sportswear manufacturing outfit. Reacting to the incident, yesterday, the NFF in a statement by its Media Director, Ademola Olajire, explained that a number of factors, including the inability to secure transit visas for players and officials of the team at the Istanbul Airport, led to the team having to stay 24 hours at the airport in Turkey.

“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. “Our officials pleaded for compassionate transit visas so as to …

Football / News / Sports

FIFA: Majority of fans back more frequent World Cup finals

FIFA says it has fan backing for the much-criticized plan to shift to a biennial World Cup after releasing a summary of the results of an opinion survey of supporters.

The proposals were outlined by FIFA’s head of Global Football Development, former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.

But they have been met with widespread opposition from within the game.

FIFA’s congress in May voted by a large majority to conduct a feasibility study into the potential of holding the World Cup every two years instead of every four years. FIFA said it used polling company YouGov and that the 15,000 respondents “were identified as expressing an interest in football and the FIFA World Cup, from a broader market research survey involving 23,000 people in 23 countries, across the organization’s six confederations.”

It said the majority of fans would like to see a more frequent men’s World Cup and of those respondents, a majority preferred a biennial competition.

FIFA said in a statement that “there are considerable differences between the so-called traditional markets and the developing football markets” and said that younger fans were more open to change.

The organization said it would publish full details of the survey and added that an expanded survey involving 100,000 people in more than 100 countries was currently underway.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has threatened a European boycott of the World Cup should the plans go ahead against his organization’s wishes.

South American confederation CONMEBOL has also come out against the plan along with the World Leagues Forum which represents the major national leagues.

Players union FIFPRO has said it has concerns about expanded workloads and a lack of consultation.

However, the Asian Football Confederation said it welcomes the consultation process.

CONCACAF, which organizes the game in North and Central America and the Caribbean, says it is studying the plans.

Wenger says that the status quo causes too much disruption and forces players to make too many long trips around the world for qualifiers and friendly matches.

He says his system would streamline the process …