By Mark Gleeson
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) -Nigeria have been awarded a 3-0 victory over Libya, and three vital points, from their scheduled Africa Cup of Nations qualifier earlier this month which they refused to play after being stuck in a remote Libyan airport for half a day before the match.
The disciplinary committee of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) on Saturday awarded the match to Nigeria 3-0, putting them on the brink of qualifying for next year’s finals as they sit top of Group D.
The three points took Nigeria to 10 with two matches left to play, four ahead of second-placed Benin and five ahead of Rwanda. Libya have a single point from four games and are in last place. The top two teams in the group qualify for the 2025 finals in Morocco.
Nigeria had refused to play the match in Benghazi on Oct. 15, citing mistreatment on arrival in the country some 48 hours before the scheduled kick-off.
Nigerian players and officials were kept in a locked airport for more than 16 hours, almost 250km away from their intended destination, after their charter flight was redirected while on approach to Benghazi and instead landed in Bayda.
They said they had no access to food or water and no contact from Libyan officials during the episode, and they decided to fly back to Nigeria rather than fulfil the fixture.
The Libya Football Federation said the incident was not deliberate, adding that their players had also faced travel difficulties when they played in Nigeria four days earlier.
But CAF found Libya in breach of competition rules that stipulate visiting teams must be properly received by the host association, who must see them through entry formalities and put a bus at their disposal.
CAF said Nigeria were awarded the match with a 3-0 scoreline and that Libya had been fined $50,000.
Libya had earlier complained about the treatment of their players and officials on arrival in Nigeria for their qualifier in Uyo on Oct. 11, when their flight landed hours away from the match venue and the players endured long travel delays.
Nigeria won that match 1-0. Their treatment ahead of the scheduled return game four days later was seen as a tit-for-tat measure and widely condemned across the continent as Libya taking gamesmanship a step too far.
It also highlighted the consistently poor treatment meted out to visiting sides when playing around Africa — in both national team and club competitions.
CAF president Patrice Motsepe said earlier this week his organisation was looking at tightening up rules and regulations to deter bad treatment of visiting teams.
African football is notorious for poor treatment of visiting teams, with common tricks being delays going through immigration on arrival, circuitous and lengthy bus trips and the allocation of poor training facilities.
(Editing by Clare Fallon)
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