By Akeem Lawal
ONLY 6,500 spectators will be allowed to watch the African Cup of Nations qualifiers game between the Super Eagles of Nigeria and Lesotho at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos on Tuesday.
Confederation of African Football (CAF) had earlier announced that at least 8,000 fans will be allowed into the stadium to cheer the Super Eagles, but the Executive Chairman, Lagos State Sports Commission Sola Aiyepeku has revealed that tickets will not be sold to the public as only selected people will be allowed into the stadium.
“It is no more 8,000, the numbers have gone a bit further down. We have instructions that there should not be more than 6,500 people in the stadium. The COVID here is real and we all know what we’ve been battling since the past year. The supporters club, journalist, security and every single person who will be at the stadium will be included in that number.
“The selection process has been on and what people are waiting for is the distribution of tickets to those who have been carefully selected in the process by the NFF. Don’t forget it is the NFF match, not ours. We are only host as Lagos State Government using CAF guidelines, which has been done.
“There will be few hundreds of tickets available by an online draw of which the details will be released later so that people can win tickets to come and watch the match which will start by 5pm on Tuesday. Tickets are not on sale at all. This is one of the instructions we have from CAF.
“The online ticket is more like a fastest-finger on our platform. So everybody that wants to win a ticket should start following @lssc on Twitter and all other channels on social media and you stand a chance to win. At least 500 tickets will be up for grabs for free. We want to give the average Nigerian a chance to get a ticket to watch the Super Eagles for the first time in Lagos in 10 years,” Aiyepeku told SportZone.
Speaking on the criteria for selecting people, the Lagos State Sports Commission said, “I’m not at liberty to explain exactly what the process is. However, it caught across a lot of indices especially the criteria of ensuring that people who come are people that will not cause any trouble, will understand the severeignity of the protocol that has been put and will abide. It caught across every age, from school children to the adults. So on the day we believe that Nigeria will be fully represented at the stadium.
“Security wise, we’ve put in quite restrictive security measures as demanded by CAF. Nobody can even drive into the stadium except people like the governor and other dignitaries. Everybody will be packing at the National Stadium and that area from a certain time of the day will be cordoned off.
“So there will be no vehicular driving access to the Teslim Balogun Stadium from a certain time of the day,” Aiyepeku said.
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