SPORTS: Nigeria Vies To Host The Under 20 World Soccer Games

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Nov 19 1997 (IPS) - Nigeria is bracing for the Under 20 World Football Championship in 1999, if the team inspecting sports facilities here recommends that the games be held in the West African country.

The team, made up of five officials from the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA), will inspect eight stadiums which have been set aside for the games.

They will be accompanied to each site by Issa Hayatou, the president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), who jetted in here two days ahead of his FIFA colleagues, who arrived in Nigeria on Sunday.

Hayatou, a Cameroonian, is scheduled to receive an award from Head of State Gen. Sani Abacha at a ceremony to be held in the capital, Abuja, on Thursday. He is optimistic that Nigeria, which failed to host the 1995 Junior World Football Championship, would scale FIFA’s hurdle this time around.

He told journalists here that FIFA lay emphasis on dressing rooms, press centres, score boards and the playing pitches.

FIFA vice-president and leader of the inspection team to Nigeria, Jack Warner, said Nigeria deserves to host the world youth soccer championship come 1999.

Warner, who was on the 1995 failed FIFA inspection team to Nigeria, said he was happy that the facilities at Liberty Stadium in Ibadan were still intact. He said, after a tour of the stadium on Monday that, the country only needed to maintain the facilities on the ground.

He said FIFA was not in the country to find faults, but to offer useful advice that would help the nation to a successful hosting of the ’99 championship.

Relations between Nigeria and FIFA have been at a low ebb since Nigeria failed to win the bid to host the tournament in 1995.

FIFA turned down Nigeria’s bid because of alleged health, security and political reasons. It said Nigeria had defaulted due to the reported outbreak of cholera in two of the three cities where matches would have been played.

FIFA agreed to hear an appeal, but with the reports of political unrest in the country during that period, it backed the shifting of the game’s venue to Quatar.

Sports analysts and government officials here say Nigeria is now ready to host the games in 1999.

“Since the FIFA team would be looking at the pitches — grass, scoreboard and dressing rooms — as well as hotels, medical, transport and communication facilities, which had been provided in 1995 and are still in place, Nigeria should not have any problems this time around,” says sports analyst Segun Orebiyi.

Orebiyi believes with two privately-owned television stations, transmission of matches outside of the country would not pose a problem, while the Nigeria Telecomunications Limited should be able to provide telephones for international calls with the digitalisation programme completed in most cities.

He says most of the pitches have well trim grass while some state governments have gone extra miles to renovate stadium earmarked for use during the competition.

For example, the Bauchi state government in Northern Nigeria has made available about 170 million naira (about two million dollars) for the updating of facilities at the Tafawa Balewa Stadium, in Bauchi and five other training pitches in its bid to be considered as one of the hosting states.

“Before the FIFA’s second visit, the stands, turfs and dressing rooms would have been updated,” announced Mohammadu Gidado, chair of Nigeria ’99 Bauchi State Forum.

As part of preparations for the visit, the State government last week organised a special five-hour sanitation exercise during which thousands of participants in the State capital cleaned up drainages and refuse from strategic areas in the capital.

Some state administrators have also gone on inspection tours of stadium facilities before the arrival of the FIFA team and they are optimistic that with the facilities put in place, Nigeria can not miss hosting the games in 1999.

“We are going to be positive and supportive so that FIFA won’t find any fault this time around,” says Colonel Ahmed Usman, Oyo State military administrator after inspection of facilities at the Liberty Stadium, Ibadan.

Nigeria’s business community is also looking forward to making good money. In 1995, they produced souvenirs for the botched competition, which could not be sold when the hosting right was withdrawn by FIFA.

“I will wait till everything is set before I venture into producing anything at all for the competition. I lost millions of naira when the last edition was cancelled. Some people had borrowed money to produce Junior World Cup T-shirts, and other souvenirs only for FIFA to cancel the hosting right at the last minute,” says Gbemi Ogun, who owns a souvenirs shop here.

“I am sure most of us will not jump into it (producing souvenirs) until we are sure FIFA has approved Nigeria as host for the 1999 event,” he adds.

However, they are treading with care this time around. The awareness campaigns that were mounted during the build up to FIFA’s inspection tour in 1995, are generally absent this time around.