Meteors Cash in On Nigeria's Iran Snub

Allafrica - Ghana's male Olympic team is the major beneficiary of the Nigeria Football Association's (NFA) inability to accept an invitation from their Iranian counterparts as the Black Meteors are set to do battle with Iran today.

The U-23 team is deputising for the senior team, the Black Stars, in the encounter which the oil-rich kingdom had offered the Glass House $300, 000.

However, due to the frosty relationship between the FA and the Super Eagles players the match, which was to have taken place after the June 2 loss to Uganda, never took place leading to the Ghana FA stepping in.

Aside using the game as a build up for the up-coming 9th All Africa Games slated for Algiers, which they qualified for at the expense of Nigeria, the Black Meteors would need to win in other to swell Ghana's points on the FIFA World ranking table as the game is labelled an international 'A' fixture. Ghana presently lies 19th on the ranking table.

The game which comes up at the Azadi stadium in Tehran would be 29 years since Ghana last played the Iranians at the same venue in a game that the Black Stars lost 3-0.

Iran is using the game against Ghana as part of their preparations for next months Asian Cup Tournament to be jointly hosted in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Incidentally, on the weekend that Nigeria lost to Uganda, the Iranians were in Latin America where they lost to regional soccer power Mexico. They were to have returned from that game to tackle the Eagles in a mid week encounter before the NFA pulled the plug.