Dolphins get raw deal in Pretoria

The team left Nigeria’s Murtala Mohammed International Airport at 10pm on Wednesday with Nigeria Football Association Board member, Dr. Sam Sam Jaja as Leader of the Delegation.
Captain Ahmed Abdulrahman, Kingsley Williams and Victor Ezeji

Accommodation worries

On arrival in Johannesburg, the team was taken by bus to Pretoria, a journey which lasted about thirty minutes and to the Protea Hotel, supposedly booked for them by the hosts.

However, the shock of their arrival at Protea was that there was no reservation made for Dolphins and the Hotel Management urged that the players wait until about 10 am, a full three hours after their arrival.

Dolphins Haruna Musa at the Protea Hotel

The players resorted to sleeping on the floor of the Hotel Restaurant until they were moved into the conference room of the Hotel to sleep until rooms would be ready.

At 10 am it was obvious there were no rooms for Dolphins at the PRotea Hotel so the team had to go out and look for an alternative source of accomodation.

the team eventually had to leave PRetoria and head back toward Johanesburg to settle at the United Hotel in the Midrand region of Johanesburg.

Musa Abdulahi, Fatai Olayinka, Diepreye Fiberesima
and Emmanuel take breakfast at United Hotel

the players and officials had a late breakfast, retired to their rooms, had lunch at about three pm local time and proceeded to their evening training at the Half Way Gardens

"We always expect this kind of treatment because most African sides think that is their way of frustrating visiting teams, but unfortunately these things don't work against Nigerian sides," Club Secretary, Fatai Olayinka told nigeriasports.com.
"After what happened in Abidjan were we lost out of the Champions League unfortunately, I do not think the players will let any kind of maltreatment get to them so I can say we have not lost focus of our mission here yet."

Kick off time for the match has been fixed at 6pm GMT on Saturday.

"It is really cold out here, I hear about 9 degrees celsuis and I guess they want to play at that time so that our boys will be slowed down by the weather, but we have come prepared for anything they have to throw at us and i believe we will be playing in the next round of the competition, come July" Team Manager, Diepreye Fiberesima told nigeriasports.com