THE Abuja National Stadium has been confirmed as the alternative venue to host the Brave Warriors’ June World Cup 2014 qualifier in Nigeria against the Super Eagles, after being shifted from Kaduna following a series of deadly bomb attacks.

The Secretary General of the Namibian Football Association (NFA) Barry Rukoro confirmed this move to Informanté Sport this week. While in Egypt while attending a FIFA Workshop for Elite Match Commissioners in Africa, Rukoro met with his Nigerian counterpart at a FIFA Competitions Committee meeting where agreement was reached that this very important match rather be held in Abuja.
“The grass-pitched Abuja National Stadium was the ultimate choice for the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) because of concerns from a number of their European-based players who are reported to be uncomfortable with playing on artificial turf, which unfortunately are their best pitches at the moment,” says Rukoro. 
The June 3 encounter was previously scheduled for the national stadium in Kaduna, but had to be shifted to an alternative venue because of fears of further sectarian bomb attacks in the mainly Muslim-populated northern regions of the oil-rich nation. According to the NFA Secretary General, the NFF declined the FIFA Competitions Committee’s offer to play the match either on an artificial pitch or on a neutral ground in another country. “They agreed on an artificial pitch, but later settled on the Abuja stadium,” says Rukoro.  A Nigerian Sunday publication on 29 April quoted a top NFF executive as saying that the federation was still conducting major inspections at the Abuja stadium.
The report further highlighted that the stadium has no power generating cable, meaning that the grass pitch cannot be watered properly.
The Brave Warriors have a busy schedule during the month of June, with an average of one game every fortnight, in addition to a 10-day training-camp scheduled at the Sportschule Kaiserau in Westphalia, Germany in May.
Besides the encounters against Nigeria on 3 June and a return leg in Windhoek on 15 June, the Warriors will also play scheduled matches both at home and away against Kenya and Malawi, the other contenders in Group F. Kenya slipped four places from position 113 to 117 in the latest Fifa rankings released last week.
Nigeria are placed 60th, Malawi 102th and Namibia 121st.