allAfrica.com: Nigeria/Ghana: Nightmare for LOC, As Fifa Puts Ghana On Standby (Page 1 of 1)

Officials of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for Nigeria 2009 are having nightmares following word out of Zurich that FIFA has placed Ghana on standby to host next year's U-17 World Cup.

The information was recently received by Nigeria'09 officials and is coming on the heels of the failure by the country to get its act together towards hosting the smallest of the FIFA competitions for boys.

While publically Nigeria 2009 officials are putting up a brave face, THISDAYSports has learnt that privately they are going through very rough times as events largely beyond their control have conspired to make the hosting process as problematic as possible.

Largely starved of funds and having no control over the rehabilitation of stadia and the other facilities necessary to host the competition, the LOC has relied largely on the goodwill of state governments to put facilities in order ahead of the FIFA visit.

However, most of the states are seriously lagging behind in the race to get their facilities up to the necessary FIFA standards for the cadet World Cup.

Besides state govermnents even the federal government is not making things easy for the LOC with funds meant for the rehabilitation of the federal stadia (Abuja, Kaduna and Enugu) also yet to be released.

Incidentally the inspection team, expected to be led by senior FIFA Vice President Mr. Jack Warner, was tacitly dissuaded from embarking on its scheduled visit last week at the prompting of the LOC, which is acutely aware that should the team had come in it would not have been impressed at all.

The LOC was able to use the burial of late former CAF Executive Member Etubom Oyo Orok Oyo, which took place on Friday as their excuse for asking for the deferment of the inspection visit.

The inspection team has since sent word that it will be making its final visit to the country at the end of the year.

They were to arrive before the end of the month, but have pushed their arrival to the end of the year because of the numerous FIFA programmes like the ongoing Futsal World Cup taking place in Brazil and the Women's U-17 World Cup billed to take place in New Zealand next month.

However, THISDAYSports can reveal that the LOC for Nigeria 2009 is highly relieved by the new date because it is hoped that by then the nation would have been able to make appreciable progress on getting facilities ready for the inspection.

As things stand only two out of the nine intended venues for inspection are likely to pass the FIFA test, they are Abuja and Lagos.

However, even the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos is still undergoing massive renovation with the field yet to be resurfaced and the stands in need of repair. At least Lagos State government is carrying out work on the venue in most other states nothing appreciable is going on.

The in house LOC inspection team was alarmed to see that other venues like Kaduna, Kano, Bauchi, Calabar, Ijebu-Ode and Enugu were seriously lagging behind.

The final venue, Warri is likely to be ready since it is playing host to the WAFU U-20 Championships later this month, while the Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna should also be ready since the state is hosting the National Sports Festival.

However, more worrying for the LOC is the belief that a number of Nigerians close to the football governing body is feeding FIFA on the true situation of things in the country.

According to a LOC official these Nigerians are believed to have taken pictures of some of the venues and sent to FIFA, which clearly shows that the country might not be ready on time.

But THISDAYSports can reveal that although such action may be deemed 'unpatriotic' by a majority of Nigerians, it is a common practice done by FIFA in order to cut through the official layer to finding out what is actually happening in the particular country of interest to the football governing body.

FIFA realises that in the developed countries, especially, most committees tend to pander towards the government that installed them and as such find it difficult to state the true situation of things especially if it will put the nation in a bad light.

So more often than not FIFA relies on the media and other sources to find out the true situation of things on the ground in the country in question.

However, in placing Ghana on standby FIFA will ensure that should Nigeria fail to meet its obligations by the end of the year, they will still ensure the competition remains in the West African sub region.

Ghana is also favoured because it played host to the African Cup of Nations early this year were it used (six) stadia - which fits the necessary number of stadia FIFA wants for the competition.

Although Nigeria'09 officials strenuously deny FIFA has such plans, only recently FIFA President Sepp Blatter was forced to admit that they had a plan 'B' and even a plan 'C', should for any reason South Africa is unable to host its flagship event - the FIFA World Cup in 2010.

And this grudging admission only came after months of speculation in the Western media that such a plan existed.

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