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The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has officially called off the AFCON 2025 second leg qualifier between Libya and Nigeria’s Super Eagles.
CAF disclosed this in a statement on their media X handle.
The game was billed to take place today (Tuesday, October 15, 2024) Benghazi.
“The TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations Morocco 2025 Qualifier fixture between Libya and Nigeria will not take place as scheduled tonight,” the statement from CAF read.
“The matter will be referred to the competent CAF bodies.”
On Sunday Super Eagles players and officials were detained by Libyan authorities at a remote airport Al-Abraq for over 10 hours.
The delegation’s flight had been diverted to another destination instead of Benghazi.
Following refusal to allow them depart the airport, the Super Eagles players resolved not to play the reverse tie and have since returned to Nigeria.
The decision by the Nigerian team to boycott the second leg, led to the Libyan Football Federation (LFF) threatening legal action against Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the Tunisian pilot who flew the Super Eagles players and officials shed light on the circumstances that led to the unexpected diversion of their flight to Al-Abraq airport instead of their intended destination, Benghazi.
“The flight plan was to land at Benghazi, Benina, and we had the approval from the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority to do so,” the pilot said in a video posted on X.
“However, when we began our descent, they instructed us to divert to Al-Abraq, which is almost 150 miles away, around 300 kilometres east. It wasn’t even (listed as) our alternate airport, something which is not good,” he added.
The pilot described the diversion as potentially risky, citing the fuel calculations made for the initial destination.
“In aviation, we have our flight plan, we calculate the fuel to our destination, so we have to avoid this kind of thing because it may make a breach to safety,” he stated, adding that he repeatedly questioned the directive
“When I asked to land in Benghazi according to my flight plan and according to my authorisation, they said no, it’s from the highest authority, you have to land in Al-Abraq.”
Refuting claims from the media that the diversion was his decision, he said, “Everything is registered in aviation, we cannot hide anything, so I asked them several times, at least eight times, and I warned them, probably I will be in trouble for fuel; they said it’s from highest authority, you cannot land in Benghazi, you have to divert immediately to Al-Abraq.”
In the first leg played last Friday, Fisayo Dele-Bashiru’s late strike earned the Eagles a 1-0 win.
14 Comments
According to what the pilot said, The order to divert the flight to another remote destination is from highest authority not from the rules that guide aviation. Meaning that Libya government had hand in this evil act.
Nigeria government must take review and take this up.
This people are evil. Can you imagine? 300kilometers away. They don’t even care if the fuel finished midair.
Not only CAF, FIFA must hear this. This people are very tricky and evil. They don’t even put themselves in the shoes of people inside the airplane and after that they still went ahead and abandoned them for almost twelve hours. Evil people.
Just one word to describe this people terrorists!
Honestly…..this is the height of inhumanity.
Even the pilot was bemused at the order to go land elsewhere despite complaints of insufficient fuel. In civil Aviation, When a pilot radios to the control tower that he’s got insufficient fuel, the skies above and runway below is cleared of all traffic to allow him land.
So the plane could have changed its course, run out of fuel and crashed possibly killing all on board and the Libyan authorities wouldn’t have cared. Wow. The Chapecoense Football Club plane crash is still fresh on our minds.
IATA must hear about this. This has to be unprecedented.
The pilot said he complained about fuel shortage for over 8 times and yet they rejected the landing even when they had begun to prepare to? This is an attempted murder and the matter should not be taken with levity. What if they ran out of fuel, the plane surely would have crashed. One idiot was saying that it is not so. I wonder what a rejection of a declaration of fuel shortage mean. Foolish people masquerading as intelligent Nigerians! If it was not intentional, why would only the pilot who I’d Tunisian be allowed to lodge in an hotel and his Nigerian crew members were not welcomed?
Another issue is that we have a very weak football federation. Why, in the first instance, should we have gone ahead to play a match in Libya, a war-ravaged country? Seriously! Why wasn’t it South Africa ? Why should CAF even allow matches to be played at that Godforsaken country? Again, we have stupid NFF representatives!
This is evil.
With inadequate fuel, the plane could have been in grave danger! Our players and coaches lives were at risk at that moment!
And after that, they still had the audacity to go ahead and detain them at the airport for 12 hours? Wow, this is extremely hostility.
If the Tunisian pilot had attempted to land the plane in Benghazi, this crazy people could have shot the plane down. They obviously were looking for opportunities to show physical aggression against our people.
It makes me even more grateful now that we got our people out of that horror show without any loss of life.
FIFA needs to act very strongly now. This kind of thing is completely unacceptable!
Unimaginable, no wonder their country was destroyed by the west. They are used to flight terrorism, so they wouldn’t care if our boys perish. Thank you God of mercy for showing our boys mercy. No more playing matches in Libya they must be banned for life.
We all know the despicable antics of the Maghreb nations and Arabs at large but this one takes the cherry on the cake.
The Lıbyans are just plain EVIL.
Hope they face the consequences.
Amaju Pinnick DO SOMETHING…
I be FIFA Council member nor be 4 mouth OOO kpamurege Pinnick DO SOMETHING KPAMUREGE.
Islamic countries always bear evil fruits
What’s has being Islamic got to do with this event, I’m a proud Muslim and nothing in mu religion instigates terror..pls stay on course and leave Islam out of your argument
So granted we didn’t treat them well, is death penalty of our players what Libya want to pay us back with!
We are waiting to see what caf will do about it
Amaju Pinnick SHOW YOUR POWER OOOO
I be FIFA Council member nor be 4 mouth OOO kpamurege Pinnick DO SOMETHING KPAMUREGE
Amaju Pinnick DO SOMETHING…
I be FIFA Council member nor be 4 mouth OOO kpamurege Pinnick DO SOMETHING KPAMUREGE.