The Super Eagles of Nigeria lost the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations final to host country, Ivory Coast,despite taking an early lead on Sunday.
Following the poor result, a popular Nigerian social media influencer, Serah Ibrahim, revealed on her X account that the Nigerian supporters were denied tickets into the stadium, which had a negative impact on the players’ performance.Ibrahim alluded that many support groups and individuals who arrived the venue to support the Super Eagles, were left stranded because of the segregation in ticket sales.
She also hinted that some lucky Nigerians were forced to pay as high as $100 (NGN 150,000), instead of the regular price of around $5 (NGN7500).
“They were not selling tickets to Nigerians. Some Nigerians even bought their tickets for $100, tickets that doesn’t cost up to $5.
“Côte d’ivore hoarded all the tickets and the NFF didn’t even try to make reservations for the tickets. Even support groups with their trumpets and drums were outside the stadium,” the influencer said.
Ibrahim has reasons to believe that this affected the Nigerian players who displayed underwhelming performance during the game, as they lacked sufficient supporters to cheer them up.
“We had fans who were outside and couldn’t go in. 57,094 people in that stadium and Nigeria was not even up to 94.
“That’s one way to mess with the players’ minds. The deed is done and I hope we learn from this
