By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
The reigning African champions, Nigeria’s Super Falcons will not participate in the maiden Basque Four-team invitational tournament billed for Bilbao in the Basque region of Spain, April 8 to 13, 2021 due to traveling restrictions occasioned by Covid-19 pandemic.
Nigeria is one of the three countries invited last month by Basque Regional Football Association alongside Argentina and Venezuela to play in the inaugural Four-nation Basque Country International Women’s Cup taking place in Bilbao, Spain.
According to the fixtures released for the tourney, Nigeria will play their first game against Argentina on April 8, 2021.
But Prompt News reports that the Nigerian senior women’s football team, (Super Falcons) will not make the trip to Bilbao, no thanks to Covid-19 restrictions which has among other things made procurement of travelling documents to attend the tournament very difficult.
Sources at the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) at the weekend confirmed that Super Falcons will not make the trip because it has been very difficult for the federation to procure visas for the team.
It was also gathered that other requirements like Covid-19 Test Certificate and Certificate of Vaccination by the airlines and some countries conspired to derail the trip.
It could be recalled that Super Falcons participated in the 2021 Turkish Women’s Cup during the last FIFA international match windows in February where they defeated CSKA Moscow, Uzbekistan, and Equatorial Guinea.
President of NFF, Amaju Melvin Pinnick who recently won a FIFA Council and CAF Executive Committee seats last month has promised to support the Super Falcons with more friendlies in preparation for the 2022 African Women’s Cup of Nations (AWCON) to be hosted by Morocco and next FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023 to be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand after more than one year of inactivity.
