Nigeria’s women national team, the Super Falcons will fly out to Canada on May 20 to put final touches to their preparation for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada.
The Chairman of Nigeria Women’s Football League Dilichukwu Onyedima confirmed to reporters yesterday that the team was planning to arrive Canada on the date, coming few days after the second leg of the 2016 Olympic Games qualifier against Mali in Bamako.
Nigeria will play her preliminary matches against USA, North Korea and Sweden in a tough group at the World Cup.
Strangely, the Falcons, tutored by Coach Edem Okon, are shorn of quality preparations expected of a team that is heading to the World Cup final.
The home and away encounters against Mali are the two fixtures of note to be played by Falcons before their final departure to North America.
The Malians, who were handed a 9-1 aggregate mauling by the Falcons in the All Africa Games qualifier, will arrive Abuja from Bamako today.
Nigeria’s mercurial striker, Asisat Osoala has been ruled out the match on Saturday after Okon excused her from the match because of busy engagement with club, Liverpool.
However, morale of the Super Falcons would likely be lowered after American sports kit maker, Nike failed to dispatch the kit consignment to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) for tomorrow’s Rio 2016 qualifier against Mali.
NFF and Nike entered into a three – year contract last month, for the supply of kits to the national teams of Nigeria.
It was intended that the female team would have the honour of being the first Nigerian team to launch the sports equipment, when they meet Mali in Abuja, in the first leg of the Olympic Games qualifier.
But NFF sources told THISDAY yesterday that the delay in the delivery of the kit, would leave the federation with no option than to supply adidas jerseys to the Falcons against the Malians.
Officials waited in vain at the Glass House through last night for the jersey consignment to arrive.
“It is true that we are yet to take delivery of the Nike kit for Falcons match. From the look of things, we will provide the Falcons with any available jerseys we can lay our hands on from the store as Nike is yet to supply kits to the federation,” a highly – placed official at the NFF confirmed.
THISDAY
