Eagles’ Ordeal In Libya Epitomises North African Football

For once, the world would have its gaze on the Afri­can continent to see what the decision of the Con­federation of African Football (CAF) would be on the disgrace­ful conduct of the Libyan Foot­ball Federation and its govern­ment during the botched second leg AFCON qualifiers between the North African nation and Nigeria’s Super Eagles.

Having played the first leg in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capi­tal, Nigeria, three days earlier, the ill-mannered Libyans had in their usual cunning nature orchestrated what they planned well ahead of time to look like an ill-treatment in Nigeria just so they can execute their evil plot to look like a retaliation when the Nigerian team goes to Libya for the return leg.

Anybody familiar with the antics of North African teams would not be surprised by the behaviour of the Libyans.

For many years when North Africans seemed to have the up­per hand in football, especially against West African teams, both in club and national team matches, they had always used this dubious trick of winning their opponents even before the ball was kicked on the field of play. Some say it is a mind game but I choose to call it outright fraud which must be addressed if Africa wants the rest of the world to take us seriously.

Before players from West Afri­ca started going abroad for inter­national exposure, the North Af­rican nations would always take our players to extremely cold or hot weather and bad playing sur­faces just to take advantage of their opponents.

They adopt all kinds of silly approaches to frustrate their opponents so that by match day, they would have been fagged out. They naively forgot that the world has been further shrunk by technology and that there’s no longer a hiding place for fraud­sters.

All this is not new but because they have been all along allowed to get away with this. It appears they cannot beat any opposition without employing devious tac­tics.

On an away ground, the North Africans are the worst teams you can ever play with. It also showed during the first leg in Uyo. Everything negative was adopted by the Libyans to frustrate the Nigerians to get at least a draw in Nigeria so they can deploy their foolish antics at home in Libya to get an unde­served victory.

I personally did not want to watch that game because, not only have the Nigerian team been disappointing with their below par performances in re­cent times but to now add this poor play of the Eagles to the ever negative approach of North African teams to the game of football, I had reasoned, would be double whammy.

Indeed the Libyans did not dis­appoint. They lived up to my ex­pectations with their completely negative approach to the game.

In all, that game could not have been played for more than 60 of the expected 90 minutes with all the nauseating delay tactics by the Libyans.

We know that in football, teams devise all tactics to win games but when it becomes so silly as the Libyans did in Uyo certainly it cannot be in the best interest of the game of football to tolerate this.

The Libyan goalkeeper spent more time lying on the pitch than he did on his feet through­out the game, for which he de­servedly got a yellow card. The entire Libyan team were so un­ruly, especially after the referee ended the game.

Sensing that they stand no chance of beating the Nigeri­an team on the field fair and square at home, they opted for a disgraceful maltreatment of the Nigerian team in Libya.

The Nigerians were held at an abandoned airport in Libya for more than 20 hours after their chartered flight landed on Sun­day, with no Libyan FA officials or protocol officers to receive them at the airport.

The Super Eagles had been due to land in Benghazi, but their plane was diverted to al- Abraq, 230km (143 miles) away from their intended destination.

The intention obviously being to expect the Nigerian team to make the rest of the risky jour­ney by road later that Monday for the match, the next day, that is if they arrived there alive, anyway.

Nigeria’s captain, William Troost-Ekong, who escalated the whole incident for the world to know, had said the team would not make a three-hour bus ride from al-Abraq to Benina, where the qualifier was scheduled to be played the following day, for safety reasons.

Expectedly, the Libyan Foot­ball Federation has denied any impropriety, saying in a state­ment it had the “utmost respect” for Nigeria.

“There are no grounds to ac­cuse the Libyan security teams or the Libyan Football Federa­tion of deliberately orchestrat­ing this incident.

“Such actions are inconsistent with our values and principles.

“We firmly reject any claims that suggest foul play or sabo­tage in this situation,” it said.

Obviously because they are lying the Libyan football body said its team also “faced signifi­cant challenges upon arrival in Nigeria” for the first leg played in Uyo.

They simply exposed the fact that they orchestrated this as re­taliation for what allegedly hap­pened in Nigeria. What a shame.

Firstly, in the case of their arrival in Nigeria, was it the Nigerian government that or­dered their flight to Port Har­court, rather than Uyo where the match would take place? If not, did they inform their counter­parts in Nigeria of their choice of Port Port Harcourt as opposed to Uyo earlier before their take off from Libya?

Secondly, after arriving Port Harcourt on their own accord, was any contact made with them by the Nigerian officials? Were there any gestures offered by the Nigerians to assist them on the journey to Uyo?

Third, did they make any for­mal complaints to CAF regard­ing the challenges they claimed they experienced in Nigeria?

Fourthly, let’s even say, with­out conceding to their deception that they were treated badly in Nigeria, did they now choose this as a retaliation? Inadver­tently, they have admitted that the ill-treatment received by the Nigerians was deliberate, in which case that would be at vari­ance with their earlier claims of having respect for Nigeria.

Furthermore, is it true that the Nigerian aircraft was di­verted while airborne and if yes, whether for safety reasons or not, was there any contact with the Nigerian team upon arrival at al-Abraq and all through their over 20-hour stay before their de­cision to return to Nigerian on Monday?

A formal complaint by Nige­ria had been sent to CAF, whose disciplinary board is now inves­tigating the incident.

CAF said it viewed “the dis­turbing and unacceptable expe­riences of the Nigerian National Football Team at an airport in Libya in a very serious light”.

CAF added that appropriate action will be taken against those who violated its statutes and regulations.

For African football to grow and compete with those from other continents, CAF must be­gin to strictly apply its statutes and regulations and ensure that those who run foul against them are appropriately punished.

As part of the investigation, the African football governing body should call for memoranda from any team who have expe­rienced similar fate to submit them to finally bring to an end this ugly side of African football especially by the North Africans.