Izuchukwu OkosiNigeria’s women’s U-17 national team, Flamingoes will face Burkina Faso in the first leg of the 2024 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup qualifiers at a neutral venue, reports Prime Business Africa.
The development comes after the world football governing body, FIFA, insisted that the Burkinabes cannot host the Nigerian side in Ougadougou as the home venue is not of the required standards.
The Burkina Faso Football Federation have consequently opted to play the first leg of the qualifying game against Nigeria in the Malian capital, Bamako on May 11 at 4pm Malian time.
The return leg at the MKO Abiola stadium Abuja will hold a week later from 4.30pm Nigerian time.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) have also released the names of match officials for the two-legged games.
The continent’s football authorities appointed Suavis Iratunga from Burundi as referee for the first leg to hold at the March 26 stadium with her compatriots Fides Bangurambona, Alida Iradukunda and Joselyn Nsabimana serving as Assistant 1 and Assistant 2 respectively.
Oumou Souleyman Kane from Mauritania will be the match Commissioner will be the referee assessor.
Raya Sisay from Ethiopia will be the fourth official, Ghana’s Naa Odofoley Nortey as commissioner and Senegalese Fatou Gaye will be referee assessor when the return leg holds in Abuja.
The Flamingoes have graced every edition of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup missing only the 2018 edition.
Before the 2022 edition, they have only gotten as far as the quarterfinals in the 2010, 2012 and 2014 editions respectively.
The team broke this jinx in 2022 by defeating USA in the quarterfinals via penalties after an entertaining and tightly-closed contest during regulation time which ended 1–1.
Read ALSO: Flamingoes Grouped With Germany, Chile N/Zealand For U-17 World Cup
Conversely, the men’s U-17 side have won the U-17 World Cup a record five times.
The Golden Eaglets won the titles in 1985, 1993, 2007, 2013 and 2015.
Their first triumph in the cadet tournament in 1985 was called the Kodak U-16 tournament.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
