Coronavirus: Pinnick Outlines Safety Procedure For Super Eagles Against Sierra Leone

The three-time African champions are billed to clash with the Leone Stars twice this month with the dreaded epidemic a major concern.

The President of the Nigeria Football Federation, Amaju Pinnick, has revealed that plans are in place to ensure the safety of Nigerian stars invited for the back-to-back Afcon qualifying games against Sierra Leone.

Head coach, Gernot Rohr, has called up 24 players to tackle Nigeria’s west African neighbours in a Group L doubleheader slated for the last week in March.

Only one of the invited 24 is based in Nigeria, with the bulk of the others set to fly into the country from Europe.

Many European countries have been affected by the spreading killer-virus, but only a few cases have been recorded in a handful of African nations.

There has been no report of any coronavirus incident in Sierra Leone. Still, NFF boss, Pinnick, is taking no chances with the football body already cooperating with top health agencies towards formulating strategies to keep players safe.

“We’ve already started to interface with the Federal Ministry of health and the disease control unit, and we are talking. At the moment, we have not monitored whether there is Coronavirus in Sierra Leone,” Pinnick told Brila FM. 

“What we have done is we have already gotten a charter. We are going to reduce the number of people that will fly with the Super Eagles. We want to reduce as many contacts as possible.”