6th May, 2015
Sunday Akintoye
Super Seven Football Club will not represent Nigeria at the Road To Anfield Five Aside Championship scheduled for 7 May in Liverpool, England following the refusal of British High Commission in Nigeria to grant the team visas to attend in the competition sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank.
The ‘Standard Chartered Trophy’ is an international five-a-side football tournament organized by the bank in partnership with Liverpool FC that offers football fans a once in a life time ‘Money Can’t Buy’ opportunity of playing at an English Premier League football pitch.
Super Seven emerged the overall winners in Nigeria recently and represented the country at the regional circuit in Accra, Ghana where they emerged the regional winners which guaranteed them a ticket to play at the England.
P.M. NEWS gathered that the team submitted their necessary documents on 27 March to the British High Commission to facilitate their trip to Liverpool, but were refused visas on 14 April by the officials who alleged that the players may not return to the country.
Sponsor of the team, Tayo Ogundele stated that he was shocked that while British High Commissions of other countries where winners emerged for the tourney were given visas long before now Nigerian was denied. “It is rather unfortunate that British High Commission in Nigeria does not have respect for Nigerian citizens at all.
What happened to my team, can happen to an individual, organization or football team like ours. After my team secured a ticket to Road to Anfield sponsored by one of British popular bank, Standard Chartered Bank, we quickly applied for visas and by the time we returned to the High Commission, we were denied visas.
One of the officials said my players are very young and there is no assurance that they will come back to the country after the competition even despite the assurance giving the High Commission by the bank in Nigeria.”
In his own remark, Captain of the team, Samuel Idowu expressed his frustration over the attitude of the High Commission.
He lamented that the team went through difficult time qualifying for the Anfield tourney. He urged the title sponsor, Standard Chartered Bank to wade into the matter.
“We players were in tears when we were denied visas. Everbody knows that we are Nigeria champions and West Africa Champions which automatically qualified us to participate at the Road To Anfield competition in Liverpool.
“We are using this medium to call on Nigeria Football Federation, NFF and relevant authorities to look into this matter because what the British High Commission did to us shows that they don’t have respect for Nigerian citizens despite the fact that we presented all the necessary documents for the trip,” he said.