21 April 2008
Lagos — The Nigeria Football Association (NFA) will lodge a formal complaint to CAF against Cameroon's football federation FECAFOOT, after the Cameroonians insisted on going ahead with the Women's Under-20 World Cup qualifying match on Saturday in defiance of a CAF directive to postpone the game.
The travelling Nigerians were involved in an emergency landing as their Virgin Nigeria flight from Lagos to Douala began filling with smoke.
The plane landed in Port Harcourt, but three members of the women's contingent suffered injury, not to mention the emotional trauma shared by all.
"We will make a case to CAF," NFA Chief Media Officer Ademola Olajire told KickOffNigeria.com on Sunday. "We expect serious sanctions to be taken against them.
"The action of the Cameroonians was not only insensitive, but in clear defiance of a directive from the continental governing body."
Olajire maintained that the NFA had requested for, and received approval from, CAF to have the game moved.
"We sent a letter to CAF requesting for a 24-hour postponement as a result of the traumatic incident that happened to our delegation and CAF replied us approving the request.
"We copied the Cameroon FA both letters and CAF, whose duty it is to inform them, duly did so too.
"But we were shocked when we got a text message from the accompanying secretary, Bola Oyeyode, that they insisted that the game must be played on Saturday because the stadium would be used for a function on Sunday.
The NFA bigwigs could not be reached as they were in Kogi State with chairman Sani Lulu Abdullahi, who was being conferred with a chieftaincy title in his home town.
Nigeria won the game 3-0 to advance 4-0 on aggregate to the second round of the Women's Under-20 World Cup qualifiers.
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