FIFA Headquarters
Nigeria negotiates to host FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2020
Nigeria is in frontline negotiating to host FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup for 2020, Discover Africa News can report. The world football body may have already tipped Nigeria to host the world event, according to Premium Times Nigeria which added that the West African country is going through relevant procedures to get the final nod.
However, standing in the way of Nigeria is mounting insecurity which has refused to abate. A source confirmed to this newspaper that Nigeria is being considered but “insecurity is the major challenge”.
It has been ten years after Nigeria last hosted a FIFA World Cup event.
“The breakthrough came following months of pressure on FIFA by the Nigerian Football Federation whose president is said to be working hard to bring as many FIFA and CAF competitions to the country.
Officials from the world body are already planning an inspection exercise to Nigeria to ascertain if the country would be fit to host the second biggest women football event on the FIFA calendar.
“Officials from Zurich are expected in August for a four-day inspection tour and some of what they would be looking out for during the planned visit is what Nigeria can offer in terms of infrastructure/operations, security, medical and the likes,” a source in the know of happenings in FIFA told PREMIUM TIMES.
It was also gathered that the world football governing is planning to spend as much as $4m on the event which effectively takes off a huge chunk of the financial burden from Nigeria, if finally given the hosting rights.
The FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup is an international association football tournament, organised by FIFA for national teams of women under the age of 20.
The tournament is held in even-numbered years.
It was first conducted in 2002 as the FIFA U-19 Women’s World Championship with an upper age limit of 19.
In 2006, the age limit was raised to the current 20.
No African country has ever hosted the event and Nigeria is looking set to be the first, having been pencilled down by FIFA to stage the 10th edition of the biennial football event.
Interestingly, Nigeria has made it to the final of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup on two occasions in 2010 and 2014 but was defeated by Germany both times.
The last FIFA event held in Nigeria was the 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup, which was the thirteenth edition of the tournament.
It was staged from October 24 to 15 November 2009 across some major cities in the country.