On Wednesday, Nigerians woke up to the news that the country’s U-20 female football team was stranded in Istanbul, Turkey.
The pictures of the footballers sleeping on the bare floor at the airport went viral.
The Falconets were returning to the country after their exit from the FIFA U20 World Cup in Costa Rica when the incident happened.
It was reliably gathered the girls departed their hotel in Costa Rica at 6.30am local time on Monday and were billed to travel via Colombia to Istanbul for the flight to Abuja.
Unfortunately, Turkish Airlines delayed their flight from Colombia to Turkey by 2 hours and 30 minutes, which resulted in them missing their connecting flight to Turkey.
As a result, they also missed the connecting flight to Abuja from Turkey.
Daily Trust gathered that Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) officials, led by Ruth David, pleaded with the airport authorities to allow the team to secure hotel accommodations, but the authorities insisted that since the team did not have transit visas, the players would not be allowed to step out of the airport.
The Falconets won all three Group C matches to earn a maximum of 9 points, but their superb performance was halted in the quarter-final when the Netherlands beat them 2-0.
