Coach of the Harambee Stars of Kenya Adel Amrouche has strongly criticised the Nigeria Football Federation for what he called shoddy treatment of his team. The coach who spoke on arrival in Calabar, claimed that the delegation was poorly treated on their arrival in Lagos on Wednesday en-route to Cross River State.
“I respect Nigeria a lot, but the way they treated us was very wrong,” he said.
He refused to comment on Saturday’s match but just said, “Today is today and Saturday is Saturday.”
The Harambee Stars arrived in Calabar on Thursday for Saturday’s Brazil 2014 World Cup qualifier against the Super Eagles slated for the UJ Esuene Stadium.
The team of 18 players and five officials that arrived at the Margaret Ekpo International Airport, Calabar at 12.45 pm, appeared very aggressive as later confirmed.
The delegation led by Husseini Terry, was received at the airport by the Nigeria Football Federation Director (Technical), Dr. Emmanuel Ikpeme, and other members of the federation.
But reacting to the allegations of made by the Kenyans, the NFF dismissed the complaints that they were not received on arrival at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos on Wednesday, as pure fiction.
NFF’s spokesperson Ademola Olajire said, “Nigerians are known to be good hosts at any time and we have not done less for the Kenyan delegation.
“Our protocol officials were at the Lagos airport to receive them, and took them to the Silver Grandeur Hotel, which is not a substandard hotel as being claimed.”
Olajire said the Kenyans were very uncooperative concerning their trip to Nigeria, “For more than one week, we sent several mails to the Football Kenya Federation but they refused to respond to any. The NFF was forced to be relating with them through the Kenyan High Commission in Nigeria.
“Strangely, they arrived with attitude and they have carried on that way. On Thursday, we flew them to Calabar and they were received like royalty, with a performance by a cultural troupe thrown in. Yet, they still complained about almost everything, including questioning why the NFF took the match to Calabar.”
Kenya captain, Denis Oleich refused to talk to reporters, but one of the players, Isah Mohammed, who spoke with our correspondent, said the team were in Calabar to win.
“Of course we are very much aware of the Super Eagles status in African football. But this is football anything can happen. We are here to win,” he said.
The Eagles are topping group F with four points ahead of Namibia, Botswana and Kenya.
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