SPORTS Paris 2024: Olympic Eagles now to host Guinea’s U23 team in Abuja

By Albert Akota

Nigeria’s U23 boys, Olympic Eagles will now host their Guinean counterparts at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Abuja on Wednesday, 22nd March, in the final round of qualifiers for this year’s Africa U23 Cup of Nations.

The game was earlier scheduled for the

Lekan Salami Stadium, Adamasingba, Ibadan the same day.

To reach this stage of the series, the 1996 champions defeated the Tanzania U23 team 3-1 on aggregate in October 2022, winning 2-0 at the Lekan Salami Stadium, Ibadan after both teams stalemated the first leg in Dar es Salaam at 1-1.

The winner over two legs between Nigeria and Guinea will advance to the finals of the Africa U23 Cup of Nations scheduled to be hosted by Morocco later in the year. It is also at the tournament in Morocco that Africa’s flag bearers at next year’s Men’s Olympic Football Tournament in Paris will emerge.

The return leg against the Guineans will be in Morocco on Monday, 27th March.

Bauchi FA board members pass vote of no confidence on Chairma

Aleadership crisis has engulfed the Bauchi State Football Association (BFA) as four Board members passed a ‘Vote of no Confidence’ on the Chairman of the Association, Patrick Paschal, a former Nigerian international footballer.

The Four Board members led by Usman Abass Shehu while briefing Journalists at the NUJ Press Center thereby announced his removal as Chairman replacing him with the Vice Chairman, Adamu Umar Madachi as Acting Chairman.

The Four Board members indicted Patrick Paschal of “high headedness, exclusion and breaching of many provisions of the Statute of the Association”.

They accused him of running the Association as his personal property as he has refused to call for a general Congress since they were elected in June 2019.

They also accused him of not carrying other members along in the running of the affairs of the Association citing examples with a few competitions he singlehandedly organized claiming that it was done by the FA after he had initially informed them that it was sponsored by Prof Suleiman Bogoro and later an unnamed Naval Officer.

While reacting to the development, Patrick Paschal dismissed his purported removal as a joke and the figment of the imagination of the four board members.

According to him, “They said that they removed me, I am presently in the office working. Those four board members have been removed during a Congress we had yesterday (Wednesday). The Congress is above any person.”

He boasted that nobody can remove him as the Chairman of the Association without following the due process laid down in the Statutes of the Association.

Patrick Paschal dismissed all the allegations against him describing them as baseless and unfounded stressing that they cannot be substantiated.