An explanation on why the recently renovated Moshood Abiola Stadium was an eyesore during the Super Eagles 2-1 win over Sierra Leone has been revealed to OwnGoalNigeria.com.
The pitch has gone from the lush green surface that hosted the Super Eagles in the ill fated 1-1 draw against Ghana in the World Cup playoff in March to one littered with patches and mud.
So bad was the surface that the players of the senior national team of Nigeria struggled to express themselves on it. Something that led to inquests on how the pitch became so bad in such a short period of time.
Explaining, a source at the ministry said it is not the fault of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) as they are not privy to the maintenance of the stadium rather it was contracted to a firm for maintenance by the ministry of youth and sports.
He said the company handling the maintenance are short of key equipments needed like water sprinkler which is the commonest and most important in pitch maintenance. He said they were renting the one they used prior to the game against Ghana.
Since then they have reverted to manual watering of the pitch which doesn’t have same effect and also makes the pitch to be water logged. Again no one from the ministry took time to supervise the job until three days to the game against Sierra Leone.
The minister for youth and sports summoned the maintenance firm and gave them a deadline to ensure that the pitch returns to its original state before the Super Eagles next game in September.
