Kickoff (Cape Town)
24 November 2008
Nigeria have ramped up the pressure ahead of Tuesday's semifinal against Equatorial Guinea by requesting gender checks on two players representing the hosts.
A similar request from Cameroon in the earlier rounds was ignored by CAF but NFF First Vice President Amanze Uchegbulam, who heads Nigeria's delegation to the 6th African Women Championships, said on Sunday that the organisers must take action to ensure a level playing field.
"We know that the organizers may not take action but we feel strongly about this. There are two players in the Equatorial Guinea team whose gender is doubtful and CAF will do this competition a lot of good if their gender can be cleared.
"It is a competition where all the teams should have level playing field, including on gender matter," said Uchegbulam.
Another official, Tunde Aderibigbe, said the players involved are Number 5 Binguisa Simpore and Number 8 Salimata Simpore, who are originally from Burkina Faso.
"These two players are not women and this is a women's tournament," insisted Aderibigbe, the special assistant to NFF President Sani Lulu.
Nigeria play Equatorial Guinea in the tournament's first semi final on Tuesday, starting from 14h00 at the National Stadium, Malabo. The host team swept all maximum nine points from their three group phase games, having scored eight goals and conceded three, against Cameroon, Mali and Congo.
Nigeria's Falcons, winners of all five previous editions, sneaked into the semi finals as second best team in Group B after drawing with Ghana and Tunisia and piping South Africa, scoring only two goals and conceding one.
Tuesday's other semifinal is between South Africa and Cameroon, also in Malabo.
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