Sports NFF delays release of World Cup list till next week

[Chris Maduewesi]

After Tuesday's meeting between the technical committee of the Nigeria Football Federation(NFF) and Super Eagles coach Stephen Keshi,the proposed release of the 2014 World Cup list has been put on hold till next week.

Keshi was expected to name his provisional list for the World Cup yesterday,but ended up not doing so after he was asked by the NFF to reduce the number of players he was presenting,from 38 to 30.

The Super Eagles coach is now expected to go back and reduce the number of players to the 30 required by FIFA for the provisional list,which will be submitted by the May 30th deadline.

On what transpired between him and the technical committee,Keshi said: “ I have submitted the list to the NFF Technical Committee. Mr Paul Bassey would tell you more about that. I submitted a list of 37 or 38 players. From that, I will draw up another provisional list of 30 which is what FIFA needs.”

Paul Bassey on his part defended the reason why they didn't release the list: "The list is ready but will be announced next week to allow for more consultation. Aside from that we are not in a hurry to dispatch it because none of the teams going to Brazil has announced its World Cup squad. We took the opportunity to look at the preparation and camp site. European season is still on and Keshi still wants to look at some players to be considered. We will come back with the list next week.