As at Wednesday, 24th August 2022, the team that represented Nigeria at the ongoing FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup are sleeping in the departure hall of the Istanbul airport. They have been there for over 20 hours, and by the time they depart the airport at 6.15pm on Wednesday, they would have spent close to 30 hours in that departure hall.
According to reports, they departed their hotel in Costa Rica at 6.30am local time on Monday, they were to travel via Colombia to Istanbul for the flight to Abuja. That simple journey has turned into a nightmarish experience.
The story is that the schedule on original ticket stated that the team would depart Colombia for Turkey at 4.30pm, following their early departure from Costa Rica. However the original airline booked, transferred them to Turkish Air, which led to some dodgy timing; this included a delay in Colombia, and subsequently led them to missing the transit flight.
But even then, some members of the contingent had tickets with a 23rd date and others had 24th. Some of the officials present with the team pleaded for accommodation; but the airline insisted that since they don’t have transit visas, they would not be allowed to step out of the airport.
Nigeria crashed out of the World Cup after losing 2-0 to The Netherlands in the quarter-final.