Lagos — The FIFA U-17 World Cup suffered a glitch at the Kaduna centre when policemen fired tear gas to disperse ball fans who wanted to gain entrance into the already filled 25,000 capacity Ahmadu Bello Stadium. The first half of the Uruguay, Algeria was mostly affected by the tear gas wafting through the air around the stadium.

The incident which happened outside the stadium by men of the Operation Yaki, was an unsual security scare which left obvious low point for the Local Organising Committee. The gas choked some of the players on the pitch and forced some fans in the sector close to the crisis point to inflitrate the tartan track for safety.

Choked by the peppering gas, Uruguayan keeper Ichazo went on the ground with his hands covering his face, even the match centre referee was not spared.

Normalcy, however, returned to the stadium after the team returned from the half time break to continue with the Group F match.

It was gathered that the police fired the tear gas to curb a mild protest by some fans who wanted to enter the stadium without tickets, on the ground that the state governor, Namadi Sambo had offset the costs of the tickets.

Previously,the fans had watched the last group matches at the stadium through the grace of the Kaduna State governor who bought free tickets for the fans.

Trouble, however, started when the fans declined to heed police directive yesterday night that the stadium was already choked. The row generated by the disagreement at the gates forced the policemen outside the stadium to fire tear gas cannisters into the air as a precursion aimed to disperse the stone throwing crowd of mostly youths. The decision by the police however, amounted to poor judgement as the event caused a global scare as the match was being televised live to global viewers.

Nigeria 2009 has been punctuated by nature, technical faults and the latest-an administrative lapse.

Torrentials rains in some of the centres have forced some matches to be either suspended, delayed or replayed outright .

Also the flood lights in Kano went off during the Spain versus USA match.