Nigeria’s U-20 women’s team face training dispute with Brazilian opponents

Aug 18, 2012 7:15:00 AM

The Falconets almost had their training disrupted on Friday by their opponents

The Falconets may have been motivated by the fact that one of their Group B opponents, Brazil wanted to watch their training on Friday at the Saitama Stadium.

The Falconets, runners-up in the last edition in Germany were scheduled to train at the Saitama Stadium where the Brazilian team were also training. But the laid down rules stated that as the former World champions had trained at the venue on Thursday, they were supposed to move to another venue to train but they objected.

It took the intervention of volunteers attached to the stadium to explain the rules to the Brazilians and get them to comply as they were violating the rules.

According to the Team Liaison Officer attached to the Falconets, Yajima Anya, the Brazilian side were to train elsewhere but objected to it on hearing that their opponents were coming.

"Going by the Fifa training schedule, the four participating teams in Group B are expected to train in all the pitches assigned to them located in different stadiums,” Anya explained.

“In effect if you train in one you go to another which is not in the same stadium. Brazil trained here (Saitama) on Thursday and should have gone elsewhere today (Friday) but they refused when they heard that Nigeria was coming," said Anya who is Japanese.

"But the volunteers attached to the stadium asked them politely to stop and move to another pitch within the complex. It took a lot of persuasion before they accepted," she added.

Nigeria will tackle South Korea on Sunday while Brazil will take on Italy on the same day. Nigeria then confronts Brazil on August 22.

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