By Seraj Essul.
Tripoli, 14 June, 2013:
The Togo football squad team finally arrived to play Libya in their World Cup qualifier at . . .[restrict]Tripoli’s Sports City at the 11th hour – almost literally so. According to Nasser Swaiye, Secretary-General of the Libyan Football Federation, their private plane landed at 11.30 pm.
Kick-off is scheduled today at 6pm.
There had been growing fears that the Togolese would not turn up. They were initially expected to arrive on Wednesday, but failed to do so. Then it was reported that they would arrive at 4pm yesterday, but again there was a no-show. Tension was growing much of yesterday evening as to whether they would arrive or not.
They had called for the match to be transferred to another country because of security concerns. The match was originally scheduled to be played in Benghazi but following last Saturday’s deadly protests outside the main Libya Shield brigade headquarters in the city, Fifa transferred it to Tripoli. But for many players that was not enough. Two of them, Alaixys Romao and Jonathan Ayite, publically announced that there was no way they were going to play in Libya. The team as a whole was still pressing Fifa to relocate it up until yesterday afternoon.
Swaiye had earlier told the Libya Herald that Nasser there should not be any problems as visas were in order, having been issued a week ago. There was no possibility, however, of the match being delayed unless Fifa ordered it.
Libya currently sits in joint first position with Cameroon in Group I, and Togo at the bottom, but they are not to be dismissed lightly. They beat Cameroon at the beginning of the week in a home match in Lomé. [/restrict]
