The Nigeria Football Federation has described as ‘unfortunate’ the incident that saw players and officials of the Super Falcons delayed for over three hours at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, on arrival from Abidjan on Thursday morning.

According to the NFF General Secretary, Dr Mohammed Sanusi, the team was delayed due to COVID-19 protocols, adding that the situation was beyond the NFF.

He, however, said the NFF had apologised to the players and officials over the incident.

This was contained in a statement titled, ‘NFF says airport incident ‘unfortunate’,’ shared on the verified Facebook page of the NFF on Thursday.

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Sanusi was quoted as saying, “It was an unfortunate incident because we had our protocol officers on the ground at the airport and they did the needful before the team arrived. We are a responsible organisation and the various National Teams have been going out and returning to Nigeria since these COVID-19 protocols, procedures and guidelines started. We have never been caught napping.

“The issue had to do with COVID-19 protocols and we had no control over how things would be approached by the officials in charge at the airport each time. In this particular case, we fulfilled our part of the requirements. However, some other group of individuals arrived at the same time as the Super Falcons’ contingent and were bent on circumventing the process, and this compelled the health officials to adopt stern measures and even lock up some of their offices.

“It was beyond us, but we have already apologised to our players and officials over this incident.”

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