Cheetahs of Benin Republic captain Steve Mounie has said he wish his country’s final Group D AFCON 2025 qualifier against Libya will not be played in the north Africa country.
After hosting Nigeria’s Super Eagles in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, on Thursday, November 14, Benin will iw take on Libya in Tripoli on November 18.
Mounie’s concern about playing their final group game in Libya is not unconnected to what happened to the Super Eagles delegation in Libya.
The Eagles players and officials were held at an airport for more than 10 hours by Libyan authorities.
Their plane had been diverted from where it was supposed to land and ended up in a different location.
After a meeting of the CAF Disciplinary Board, the Eagles were awarded three points and three goals while Libya was also fined $50,000.
Speaking ahead of the two crucial games Mounie expressed confidence of a favourable result for Gernot Rohr’s men
“We have two games left. Nigeria, so to speak, at home in Abidjan, which suits us well,” he was qouted on Joueurs Beninoise. “And this match against Libya, which I hope will not be played in Libya. But I don’t know if CAF will do anything at this level.
“I think that both games are within our reach and in any case, we will have to go through this to qualify .”
“We were disappointed with our match in Rwanda. It’s not the result we were hoping for. All the Beninese people were hoping for a different result. But we still have our destiny in our hands.”
2 Comments
Dear not
Libya should be banned from hosting games for the foreseeable future.
Let them play their home games outside Libya. And I still believe the $50k fine is a mere slap on the wrist. A more hefty fine would have been better.