The Confederation of African Football President Issa Hayatou has lamented Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations.
The CAF boss said that even though the Super Eagles failed to get a ticket to Equatorial Guinea, the situation has not diminished the country’s importance to the structure of African football.
Defending champions Nigeria were forced to bite the dust after they failed to beat SouthAfrica in Uyo while closest rivals Congo defeated Sudan away in Khartoum on the last day of the qualifiers.
Hayatou told Nigeria Football Federation president Amaju Pinnick after the draw ceremony held in Malabo on Wednesday that the entire African football family would feel the absence of the Eagles at next year’s finals. Continue...
Hayatou said in an NFF statement made, “The whole of Africa will miss Nigeria in Equatorial Guinea. But the absence will not in any way diminish your stature as a very big and influential nation in the African game.
“It would have been good to have the defending champions in Equatorial Guinea. Nigeria brings so much value to the Africa Cup of Nations. However, we know that you will come back much stronger, as you did in winning the cup in South Africa last year after missing out on the 2012 championship.”
The Eagles coached by Stephen Keshi started very poorly losing the first match of the qualifiers by 3-2 to Congo in Calabar. They appeared to have recovered with the goalless draw against South Africa four days after but fell deep into trouble when they lost by 1-0 to Sudan in Khartoum. The win turned out the only game the Sudanese secured any points through the qualifying series.
And without the AFCON ticket, the Nigeria federation has turned its attention in other places. The Nigeria referees contingent arrived in London on Wednesday from Lagos for a training programme organised by the NFF.
On Thursday, the 11 referees had their first training session at the Wembley Stadium, where Mr. Ian Blanchard, head of refereeing at The Football Association, lectured them on structure of refereeing, laws of the game and players/coaches/referees’ relationship.
On Friday, the referees were at Southampton’s St. Mary’s ground to watch a match between the U-18 teams of Southampton and West Brom, after which they were engaged in a two-hour question-and-answer session with Mr. Albert, head of refereeing at Southampton.
On Saturday, the Nigerians were at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester to watch the English Premier League match between Manchester City and Everton, which City won 1-0. They wrote a report of the refereeing aspect immediately after the match.
The referees will this week embark on a tour of Arsenal FC’s Emirates Stadium and be involved in analysing weekend Premier League matches.
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