Since arriving Brazil for the World Cup over four days ago, it had been difficult to track the schedule of participating teams, as they and their fans have been perpetually in transit.
Although this had been acknowledged by FIFA, the situation on ground had proved to be a daunting task to visiting journalists striving to give the 2014 World Cup effective coverage.
“One will have no other choice than to keep transiting with teams or stay rooted to a place with considerable irrelevance,” said Duro Ikhazuagbe, a journalist with Nigeria’s ThisDay newspapers in Lagos.
The distances between venues are not helping the coverage.
The situation is gradually taking its toll on the finances of the media and the fans alike.
“These are issues that FIFA should address,’’ said a Sierra Leonean journalist, Mohammed Garri.
NAN reports that the shuttling of participating teams from one city or the other, to play their group stage matches, commenced at the France `98 World Cup.
Tony Ubani of the Vanguard Newspapers, Lagos, said he had to make Sao Paulo his “base camp” because the Super Eagles were also based in the city.
While the cost can be scary for individuals operating on a shoe string budget, the official delegation of the participating countries are not bothered about the rising costs of travels.
Also, the acquisition of sim cards for mobile phones have not been easy, compared to what obtained in many countries.
You would have to have resident permit in Brazil to purchase one.
However, “OI”, one of the official local partners of FIFA, gave out sim cards or chips, as it is called here, to accredited journalists, but the top ups are borne by the individual journalists.
What is more worrisome is having to master the various telephone codes of the various cities.
While the telephone networks in Nigeria have one universal code, the same cannot be said of a country like Brazil.
Since there was no alternative, we had to conform to the norm.
In another development, the Super Eagles are due to engage their Bosnia Herzegovina opponents on June 21 at Cuiaba, a city located eight hours drive away from Sao Paulo.
A journey to Porto Alegre, where the Super Eagles would take on Argentina in their last group match, would take 18 hours to get there by bus, while a flight would cost not less than $1,000.
The buses here are dead accurate in their timings.
When they say a journey is 18 hours by road, it is nothing more or less.
Again, following the failure of the Super Eagles to secure the three points at stake against the Melli of Iran, the key officers of the Nigeria Football Association have made themselves inaccessible.
The fact that telephones are hard to come by makes it become an uphill task to get connected when eventually a phone is accessed.
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