Amaju Pinnick, president of the Nigeria
Football Federation has warned that lack of
finance could scupper Nigeria's chances of
making it to the Russia 2018 World Cup.
According to Pinnick, who appeared on
Tuesday before the Senate committee on
Sports, the NFF is yet to pay for hotel fees
for 70 rooms they'v secured at Protea hotel,
Zambia and other expenses like airline fees
might make them not to honour their first
2018 World cup qualifier match against the
Chipolopolo of Zambia on Sunday.
Pinnick said: 'Nigeria was paired with former
African Cup winner Zambia, Algeria, and
Cameroon that won the Nations cup four
times and they've been to the World Cup
seven times.'
'Algeria is the highest ranked team in Africa
as we speak.
It is a group that is called
'group of death' which means we need to
intensify our preparations . We need to
monitor our players to make sure that the
ticket is made available.
'The good news is that i think we have a very
sound technical crew and we also have a lot
of our players doing very well, but the
missing link is our financial incapacity which
activates practically everything you do on the
field and off the field.''
''Before now, we had sent representation to
government for intervention because funds
were not coming in from our sponsors, which
relates to the economy of the country at the
moment and is being very difficult for them,
that is what they claim'
'So we didn't have any option than to resort
to writing to the government, which we did
and are still waiting for response and the
match is in five days.'
Pinnick also revealed that chartered flight
arrangements with Arik air had been secured
but that they have not been able to pay for
their hotel in Zambia.
''We have been able to secure about 60 to 70
rooms but we need to make some payments
so that they will keep the rooms because
everybody wants to come and watch that
game from Zambia and that is our
predicament''
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