/ 31 January 1999

FIFA UNIMPRESSED

A Fifa inspection team has described hotels in one of Nigeria’s venues for the World Youth Cup as “poor” and ordered the organisers to improve them within a month, state-run News Agency of Nigeria reported on Friday. “The hotels in the Ibadan centre are a shadow of their former selves, poor…but there is room for improvement,” NAN quoted Walter Gagg, head of the Fifa team, as saying. Ibadan, 110kms from Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, is one of eight cities earmarked by Africa’s most populous country as venues for the April 3-24 tournament. Another Fifa delegation will join Gagg’s team on Saturday for a final inspection to decide whether Nigeria’s facilities are good enough for the event to take place.