Ten years after Nigeria last
hosted a FIFA World Cup event, the country is set for another chance as the
world football governing body seems ready to award the country the hosting
right of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup for 2020.
The breakthrough came following
months of pressure on FIFA by the Nigerian Football Federation whose president
is said to be working hard to bring as many FIFA and CAF competitions to the
country.
PremiumTimes reports that officials from the world body are already planning an
inspection exercise to Nigeria to ascertain if the country would be fit to host
the second biggest women football event on the FIFA calendar.
“Officials from Zurich are
expected in August for a four-day inspection tour and some of what they would
be looking out for during the planned visit is what Nigeria can offer in terms
of infrastructure/operations, security, medical and the likes,” a source in the
know of happenings in FIFA revealed.
It was also gathered that the
world football governing is planning to spend as much as $4m on the event which
effectively takes off a huge chunk of the financial burden from Nigeria, if
finally given the hosting rights.
The news came a day after NFF
president, Amaju Pinnick, completed his two-year tenure as 1st Vice President
of the Confederation of African Football. CAF President, who is facing
corruption charges, failed to recommend Mr. Pinnick for another term of office.
But despite stepping down as
CAF’s first vice president, Mr Pinnick remains a strong member of the CAF exco.
He also remains a member of the organising committee for FIFA competitions.
The FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup
is an international association football tournament, organised by FIFA for
national teams of women under the age of 20.
The tournament is held in
even-numbered years.
It was first conducted in 2002 as
the FIFA U-19 Women’s World Championship with an upper age limit of 19.
In 2006, the age limit was raised
to the current 20.
No African country has ever
hosted the event and Nigeria is looking set to be the first, having been
pencilled down by FIFA to stage the 10th edition of the biennial football
event.
Interestingly, Nigeria has made
it to the final of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup on two occasions in 2010 and
2014 but was defeated by Germany both times.
The last FIFA event held in
Nigeria was the 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup, which was the thirteenth edition of
the tournament.
It was staged from October 24 to
15 November 2009 across some major cities in the country.
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