Startling information has emerged that the protest against Nigeria by Niger Republic had actually been instigated by Ghana’s officials, who tried to prevent the Golden Eaglets from meeting their team in the African U17 Cup of Nations zonal qualifier.
With a long history of rivalry between Nigeria and Ghana existing over the years, details reaching footballlive.ng indicate that the Ghanaians reckoned playing against the Eaglets would be tough, and tried to get the Nigerian cadet team out through the boardroom.
However, they did not take cognisance of the fact that the player they touted Niger to cite in their protest, Adam Mustapha, had not been dressed for the semi-final clash that sent the hosts packing.
To try and get the Eaglets disqualified, the Ghanaian officials approached Niger Republic immediately after Nigeria dumped the host nation out of the tournament with a 2-1 win.
They succeeded in convincing officials of the Niger Republic team that a Nigerian player was paraded with an expired passport, to which Niger responded by filing a protest.
However, their protest was thrown out as lacking in merit, and Ghana will now have to battle Nigeria on Saturday for the sole ticket to represent the zone at next year’s Africa U17 Cup of Nations in Tanzania.
