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NIGERIAN SOCCER TEAM FIASCO IN ATLANTA: A NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT OF EPIC PROPORTIONS


This Nigerian soccer team fiasco in Atlanta is the most embarrassing thing I have experienced as an adult.  Certainly, there are enough blames to go around.  Is Nigeria so poor that it cannot afford to field an Olympic team.  How can we pay for the team to go to a warm up game in Atlanta but can't pay for the real thing?    It is indicative of our misplaced priorities as a country.

On the other hand, when did the Nigerian soccer team know that they had no budget for this Olympic trip?  More important, when did they know that they had no plane ticket to travel from Atlanta to the Olympic Games?  How did the US Embassy even give them a visa to US without a round trip ticket or exit ticket?  Is it possible that the Team is withholding its original travel ticket money to cover their spending money at the Olympics while trying to force the country to pay for another plane ticket?  After all, the team does not want to travel to the Olympic only to be abandoned there without spending money.  

If the Team knew that it had no budget in Nigeria, why did it not just stay home rather than go out there in Atlanta to expose their behinds?  Besides, does the fact that Delta Is now willing to pick up the tab not indicate that the Team had plenty of time and could have privately raised money from private sponsors in Nigeria if the Nation could not pay for this?  I had hoped that I would never use this phrase in my lifetime, but I will.  I am confused.

However, after arriving late to Manaus, Brazil for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Nigeria's U-23 side struggled past Japan 5-4 in their first Group B game.

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