President of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, Aminu Maigari has appealed to Nigerians not to panic over Super Eagles qualification for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and assured that the national team will beat Malawi on Saturday and move to the last stage of qualification.
Maigari said yesterday that the team is prepared for the do or die battle against the Flames of Malawi and has therefore appealed to fans to come out in large number to give support to the team, adding that everything is being done for the team to beat their opponent and scale through to the last hurdle of qualification.
‘’The Super Eagles qualification for the World Cup means a lot to me and for us in the Federation, our determination is to grab the ticket. The Federal Government is giving us the needed support. I think of the qualification every day. It means a lot to us to qualify Nigeria and we are going to do just that.’’
Maigari, however, called on all Nigerians to support the team in prayer, noting that their contributions have been a tremendous boost to the team.
He assured that adequate security has been put in place for the match on Saturday.
‘’Nigeria is safe and Calabar is safe. We have been playing all our matches in Calabar and there has never been any problem. Every stone is being put in its proper place. We have set up a team to receive the Flames of Malawi that would be arriving tomorrow (today).’’
He said that the two Malawi FA officials, a secretary and the accountant sent ahead of the team to Nigeria have expressed satisfaction with the level of preparation especially the security arrangement, hotel accommodation and training pitch for the players and officials.
He disclosed that NFF would be paying the Super Eagles $5,000 as winning bonus, noting that the said amount is what the Ministerial Panel set up by the Minister of Support recommended. ‘’If the government on their own said they want to add to what the federation has offered by way of increasing the bonus, there will be noting bad about it.’’