The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has debunked claims in the online media that the Super Eagles will fail to honour their World Cup qualifying game against Zambia.

In a statement issued on its website, www.thenff.com, on Thursday it said the report was baseless.

“The Nigeria Football Federation has condemned, in very strong terms, a report in some media outlets including America’s Cable News Network (CNN) that it cannot fly the Super Eagles to a 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying match in Ndola on Sunday, 9^th October 2016,” the statement said.

The Federation said it “viewed the report as baseless, misleading and despicable, not only against Nigerian football, but against the Nigerian nation.

“The NFF insisted that the report was the concoction of an idle mind and challenged the purveyors of the falsehood to name their source.”

It went ahead to assure “Nigerians that it had concluded arrangements on getting players and officials of the Super Eagles to Abuja for a training camp starting on Sunday, 2^nd October, getting the team to and from Zambia and getting the players back to their various Clubs after the national assignment.

“The body called for the support and prayers of Nigerians at this time, and urged that the players be allowed to focus on the big task of qualifying the nation to the 2018 FIFA World Cup, without so much negative stories and insinuations.

“The NFF noted that over the past few months, some persons have made it their business to fabricate unhealthy stories about the NFF and Nigerian football. It called on all stakeholders to disregard, henceforth, any report about the NFF that did not emanate from the NFF Communications Department.”

The NFF admitted it was facing financial challenges as a “result of the current state of the economy”, as it “expressed solid faith that matters would never get to the point of Nigeria being unable to get its National Team to the venue of a competitive match or championship.”

Oludolapo Adelana

Dolapo is a writer and journalist who works with YNaija. He has interests in Christianity, politics and sports.