Officials of the Nigeria Football Federation were thoroughly embarrassed after failing to present match balls for the Super Eagles and South Africa Afcon 2019 qualifying tie in Uyo on Saturday.
A source hinted that officials of the Glass House claimed they were yet to take delivery of the balls even after the Confederations of African Football distributed them to all affiliated countries, including Nigeria.
CAF has however warned all countries in the AFCON qualifiers to strictly ensure the official balls are used for the qualifying games as failure to do so will attract heavy sanctions.
A source said: “It is unfortunate that we keep dragging our football backwards.
“Our football administrators kept failing us in all areas.
“I don’t know the excuse they will give this time.
“Is it that they were not aware about match balls for the qualifiers or it got missing?
“Anyway, don’t be surprised if we begin to see the balls in shops in Lagos and other parts of the country in next few weeks.”
It was reliably gathered that it was the South Africans that came to the rescue as they made available their own balls after several appeal from the Nigeria Football Federation.