Lack of Funds Hits Nigeria Camp Ahead Amputee Football AFCON

Lack of Funds Hits Nigeria Camp Ahead Amputee Football AFCON By Our Reporter The Nigeria National Amputee Football team have been drawn alongside Egypt and Ghana in the group D of the upcoming Cup of African Nations for Amputee Football (CANAF) in Tanzania The draws for the CANAF 2021 which took place on Thursday was anchored by the president of the Federation of African Amputee Football (FAAF), Rev. Amartey Richard. 15 teams will be taking part in the 6th edition, making it the most featuring showpiece in the  competition's history Nigeria settled for Silver at the 2019 Cup of African Nations for Amputee Football (CANAF) after a 2-0 loss to host and world champions Angola in the final. In group A is the host country, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Morroco while group B had the current champion; Angola,Rwañda, Kenya and Zanzibar. Group C has Liberia, Cameroon, Gambia and Ethiopia in the card with just three teams making up  group D aforementioned. Recall that the travails of the Nigeria team which also referred to as  'Special Eagles' was earlier reported with the team Captain, Sarafadeen Olalekan lamenting a poor preparation ahead of the tournament. The Skipper of the team had noted the fact that the team is yet to open camp ahead of the showpiece with lack of funds to prosecute some of their basic needs among which is facilities, flight tickets, kits and food. "Presently at the National team , things are not going the way it supposed to be as our preparation towards the next Nations Cup has not been encouraging. Up till this moment, we have not opened the camp and also all the logistics have not been put in place" Says the Skipper in his latest interview with Silverbird TV. He added "There's no funding. Even now, we have not gotten flight ticket and we will be travelling with 18 man team. We need support for logistics, feeding and kicking" The aforementioned challenges are not new to the Nigeria 'crutches team' as they also had to suffer untold hardship during their last outing. Even with the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare promising them a better welfare after their exploits in the last edition, the para- footballer have neither taste any compensation nor recognition from the government. CANAF 2021, which will hold from 28th of November to December 5th is a biennial tournament organised by the (FAAF) to determine Africa’s best team and also serves as part of qualifiers for the Amputee World Cup usually organised by World Amputee Football Federation (WAFF) . Liberia have won three editions of the tournament while Ghana won the inaugural edition hosted in 2007 in Sierra Leone .