Covid-19 stops Super Falcons’ Basque 4-team invitational tournament trip

By Harry Awurumibe,Editor-in-Chief, Abuja

The reigning African champions, Nigeria’s Super Falcons will not participate in the maiden Basque Four-team invitational  tournament billed for Bilbao in the Basque region of Spain April 8 to 13, 2021 due to traveling restrictions occasioned by Covid-19 pandemic.

Nigeria is one of the three countries invited last month by Basque Regional Football Association alongside Argentina and Venezuela to play in the inaugural Four-nation Basque Country International Women’s Cup taking place in Bilbao, Spain.

According to the fixtures released for the tourney, Nigeria will play their first game against Argentina on April 8, 2021.

But Sportsrevelation.com.ng can exclusively report that the Nigerian senior women’s football team, (Super Falcons)

will not make the trip to Bilbao, no thanks to Covid-19 restrictions which has among other things made procurement of travelling documents to attend the tournament very difficult.

Sources at the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) at the weekend confirmed that Super Falcons will not make the trip because it has been very difficult for the federation to procure visas for the team.

It was also gathered that other  requirements like Covid-19 Test Certificate and  Certificate of Vaccination by the airlines and some countries conspired to derail the trip.

Sportsrevelation.com.ng reports that Super Falcons participated in the 2021 Turkish Women’s Cup during the last FIFA international match  windows in February where they defeated CSKA Moscow, Uzbekistan, and Equatorial Guinea.

President of NFF, Amaju Melvin Pinnick who recently won a FIFA Council and CAF Executive Committee seats last month have promised to support the Super Falcons with more friendlies in preparation for the 2022 African Women’s Cup of Nations (AWCON) to be hosted by Morocco and next FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023 to be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand after more than one year of inactivity.