Sequel to the ugly incident that trailed the failure of the Super Eagles to qualify for the 2022 World Cup at the expense of Ghana’s Black Stars, world football governing body, FIFA, has wielded the big stick on the Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja with an indefinite suspension.
This followed the pitch invasion by angry fans protesting the failure of the Super Eagles to defeat Black Stars of Ghana.
It was a World Cup qualifying match.
The irate fans had invaded the pitch, wreaking havoc and destroying the newly refurbished stadium.
Though FIFA had indefinitely suspended the usage of the stadium, but there are insinuations that Nigeria will still suffer further sanctions as FIFA and CAF are yet to meet to ascertain further sanctions to be meted out to the Nigeria Football Federation for failing to provide adequate security for the game.
It would be recalled that the Confederation of African Football Disciplinary Committee in May 2006 sanctioned Nigeria with a $5,000 fine for poor crowd control at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium, Kaduna, where the Super Eagles hosted Egypt in a Gabon 2017 African Nations Cup qualifier in March.
The organisers of the match allowed a crowd of over 40,000 inside the stadium designed to hold 25,000 spectators.
The Super Eagles and the Pharaohs drew 1-1 in that encounter, with the Egyptians subsequently defeating Nigeria 1-0 in the return fixture to stop the Eagles from qualifying for the competition.
At the 2000 African Cup Of Nations tournament co-hosted by Nigeria and Ghana, Nigeria was sanctioned by CAF following crowd encroachment on the pitch in the quarterfinal match between the Super Eagles of Nigeria and the Teranga Lions of Senegal at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos.
The game had gone into extra time with Julius Aghahowa scoring a goal which fans had thought was a golden goal.
In wild jubilation, they invaded the pitch before security operatives restored calm for the resumption of the match.
Nigeria was heavily fined for that breach of security.