APPARENTLY not comfortable with the rejection of their petition for a change of venue for the 2014 World Cup qualifier against Nigeria by FIFA, the Football Association of Malawi has said it wants to process Nigeria visas for the national team right there in Malawi before flying to Nigeria.
The Flames play the Super Eagles on September 7 in Calabar and are allowed to process the visas upon arrival in Abuja.
However, Fam general secretary Suzgo Nyirenda said they would not want to leave anything to chance and want to have the visas processed before leaving for Nigeria.
“We have Nigeria embassy right here in Lilongwe. We can have our visa processed before starting off,” Nyirenda said.
Keshi and Saintfiet, one of the foreign coaches that have managed many African teams
“We don’t want to leave anything to chance. We don’t want to experience what other teams in the group experienced when they went to play in Calabar.”
Nyirenda confirmed that he had been warned by their Namibia and Kenya counterparts that they should expect a tough ride in Nigeria if they do not process their visas before leaving for Nigeria.
“We are reliably informed that if we go there without processing the visas, we might spend hours at the airport waiting for the visas to be processed like the way Kenya and Namibia were made to wait. We don’t want that to happen. That’s why we will make sure we get our visas processed right here,” he said.
“There is only one local flight connecting to Calabar and if we miss that flight due to the visas complications we are bound to arrive in Calabar an hour before the game which we don’t want to happen.”
Meanwhile, Fam is expected to send an advance party which would give the association a picture of what to expect in Calabar. Fam has raised security concerns about Calabar, the CrossRiverState capital, which is famous for kidnappings of foreigners for ransom.
However, Nigeria last week responded by rubbishing Fam’s claims arguing that games have been played at the venue without any security problems.
But Nyirenda said Fam wanted to get a guarantee from Nigeria Football Federation.
“We know what we are doing. We did not just wake up and start raising such concerns without any basis. That area is blacklisted because of terrorist activities,” the GS said.
“If anything happens to our team NFF will be answerable because they have assured us that there will be security.”
Nigeria need a draw to proceed to the next round while Malawi need to win to leapfrog Super Eagles who are leaders in Group F.
