A LARCERATING LESSON FOR LIBYA
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has finally and heavily descended on Libya for the provocative actions that turned Africa’s most successful and glamorous team into hostages at a Libyan airport for about 16 hours between October 13 and 14, 2024. It is deeply satisfying to know that such scandalous and cowardly acts that stain the face of the beautiful game on the continent will not be tolerated going forward.
After spending 16 hours with no food, water or internet at an obscure Libyan airport where their flight was diverted to, the Nigerian contingent to the 2025 AFCON qualifier between Nigeria and Libya scheduled for October 15 in Benghazi stormed back to the country amid a wave of global outrage.
CAF called both parties to the dispute to submit documents about the incident and after review handed three points and three goals to the Nigeria while dishing out a fine of 50,000 USD to Libya
The Libyans have appealed the verdict, but to allow their half-hearted appeal sail through would set African football back many years and endorse the dark arts which have been an especially fearsome feature of North African countries in recent time. One easily recalls the tempestuous 2010 World Cup qualifying match between Egypt and Algeria which saw both countries accuse each other of food poisoning before a solitary Antar Yahia strike in Sudan sent Algeria to the World Cup and the expense of Egypt.
Since football culminated in the first World Cup in 1930, the round leather game has been a unifying force, a unifying factor across the world and especially in Africa where poverty and conflict often conspire to place an immeasurable strain on people’s lives. Football has also been a transformative force. There have been incredibly heartwarming stories of kids born into wretchedness who later changed the trajectory of their families because they were fortunate enough to play professional football.
It Is not for nothing that football is called the beautiful game. It has helped to remove the ugly about many aspects of life and society. After all, it was around football that iconic former Ivorian footballer and captain of the national team, Didier Drogba, united warring factions to end what had been a devastating civil war.
It is why the crater of ugly Libya opened when Nigeria came visiting was just too insidious. Having slumped to defeat in the first leg in Uyo despite some time-wasting, the Libyans, rather than concentrate on settling scores on the pitch in Benghazi, decided to do it at an airport, thereby risking the lives of some of the biggest sports stars on the planet.
Their strategy to humiliate and dehumanize the Nigerian team was as incomprehensible as it was incredible, and the incandescent rage expressed by the Nigerian team surely matched the weight of their hosts’ folly, who were exposed as cruel and crude.
It is a great thing that CAF is not allowing Libya set a template for how visiting teams are to be treated in African football. While football sometimes ignores dark arts, those dark arts backfire spectacularly when when they are not done smartly.
With a single point through six qualifying matches, the Mediterranean Knights of Libya are rooted to the bottom of Group D. That is where they deserve to be for deploying such base tactics against Africa’s most successful team, one which has always treated visiting teams with supreme dignity. Rather than concentrate on matters on the pitch where they had a better chance of grinding out a result, they chose to battle at an airport for which they have been fined heavily.
Let it be etched somewhere in the local lore of Libya that the Super Eagles of Nigeria went to their country spent 16 excruciating hours at a remote airport and left with three points, three goals while fetching their ungenerous hosts a hefty fine.
Ike Willie-Nwobu,
