As typical of the country, Nigeria’s football team to the 2016 Rio Olympics (so-called dream team VI) are currently stranded in Atlanta, Georgia, United States and will arrive late, if ever, for the games. This is due to a delay in payments for their chartered flight.
The team got stuck in Atlanta, USA, where they had gone for pre-games training, following the refusal of the chartered airline to haul them to Rio until full payments were made.
The delay means the team will arrive in Brazil, if ever about 35 hours before the opening match against Japan on Friday.
A source at the Nigeria Football Federation, in a BCC report, was ambiguous in explaining the reason for the delay. ‘Logistical mix-up’ with operators of a charter aircraft, the source said.
“The Nigerian government [sports ministry] is responsible for booking the tickets for the team to travel but we heard there is a logistical mix-up with payments.”
“The money paid by the ministry for the charter flight did not hit airline’s account on Tuesday so they refused to fly the team to Brazil.”
“It is a cumbersome exercise but they should have started the process much earlier, which NFF was pointing out. This issue has nothing to do with the NFF.”
Nigeria’s olympic football team is in Group B alongside Sweden, Colombia and Japan.
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