The amputee football team missed the previous World Cup’s mainly due to lack of funds and went for crowd-funding to compete in the tournament this year. The Super Eagles squad and Nigeria Football Federation president Amaju Pinnick did make best monetary contributions. However, John Mikel Obi, the captain has decided to assist the team.

Fred Edoreh, the fundraising coordinator said that they have had a word with John Mikel Obi’s representative who has agreed to help and assist the team. As per Edoreh, the support of John Mikel Obi will be a great boost and now the biggest challenge is to get flights to help the squad to reach Mexico. He also said that they are running short of time and now with fares going higher by the day, their opening game is going above the budget. Therefore, the decision has been taken by the management to send the first team as the initial batch. This is being done mainly to avoid the increased cost and help the team to settle down prior to the match against Brazil.

“The first batch left initially and there were inadequate seats in the last lap of the travel from Mexico to Guadalajara.“ The travel agents did struggle to secure a seat for them the next day. This made them depart on time with Ethiopia Airlines. He also said that it helped them secure their presence and “global sanction was avoided“. With some extra funds, he hoped that the reserve team could depart the next day which did happen as expected.

The former Chelsea midfielder John Mikel Obi supported the team with funds and kits. Ghana, Kenya, and Angola represented Africa at World Cup 2014 in Mexico. Well, the Angolans completed as runners-up after they lost 3-1 in the finals to Russia.