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Super
Falcons’ players and officials on arrival in France on Tuesday.
Football
World
Cup–bound Super Falcons of Nigeria have been educated on what signs, symbols
and issues constitute threats to the integrity of the game.
The
Integrity Officer of the Nigeria Football Federation, Barrister Okey Obi, took
the Falcons’ players and officials through the fine lines of integrity
variables at their EventHotel Pyramide in Vosendorf, Austria on Monday night,
ahead of their departure to France on Tuesday.
“Match
manipulation, in one way or the other, poses serious threat to the careers of
football players in particular and the growth and development of football in
general. That is one of the reasons FIFA has made integrity briefings mandatory
for teams heading to the FIFA World Cup finals.
“In
order to generate, capture and sustain the interest of the players and the
officials, I enlisted the buy-in of the Head Coach, Mr. Thomas Dennerby and the
captain, Desire Oparanozie. I also made the presentation interactive, with one
of the players, Onome Ebi, a veteran of several World Cups, Dennerby and an
assistant coach sharing their experiences and helping with practical examples
and potential situations of match manipulation,” Barrister Obi, who is the
Single Point of Contact (SPoC) for Nigeria for the 8th FIFA Women’s World Cup
finals, told thenff.com.
Obi
rated the session as highly successful: “I was pleasantly surprised with the
level of acceptability which actually surpassed my expectation. The players
were very attentive and participated actively; they took pictures of the slides
during the presentation and appeared to truly like the features of the
mechanisms, especially the anonymity of the reporting that considered the
safety and security of the person reporting.
“The
briefing was a huge success considering that it was the first time this was
happening in respect of women football.”
PHOTO:
Barr. Obi (seated first from right, front row) with players and officials of
the Super Falcons after the integrity briefing in Austria on Monday.
The
Falcons have landed!
Nigeria,
the African champions, have arrived in France for the 8th FIFA Women’s World
Cup finals. The delegation of the Super Falcons landed at the Aeroport Charles
de Gaulle just before 5pm on Tuesday, three days to the kick-off of the
tournament.
Although
their best performance till date has been a quarter final appearance at the
third edition of the competition in the United States of America 20 years ago,
the Super Falcons is one of only seven teams to have appeared in every edition
of the championship since it was launched in China in 1991. The others are the
senior women teams of Germany, Norway, Brazil, USA, Sweden and Japan.
In
France, the nine –time African champions are up against host nation France,
Norway and Korea Republic in Group A. They open their campaign against Norway
on Saturday in Reims, before other matches against Korea Republic in Grenoble
(12th June) and France in Rennes (17th June).
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