After an incident at the airport, Nigeria was given a 3-0 victory over Libya

Nigeria was stuck in a rural Libyan airport for half a day before their planned Africa Cup of Nations qualifier earlier this month, so they refused to play. Instead, they were given a 3-0 win over Libya and three important points.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) disciplinary committee gave the game to Nigeria on Saturday, 3-0. With that win, Nigeria is almost certain to make it to next year’s playoffs, as they are currently in first place in Group D.

Nigeria now has 10 points, four more than second-placed Benin and five more than fifth-placed Rwanda. They still have two games to play. Libya is in last place with only one point from four games. The top two teams in each group will go to the finals in Morocco in 2025.

Nigeria was not going to play the game in Benghazi on October 15, saying they were treated badly when they got there 48 hours before the game was supposed to start.

Nigerian officials and players were stuck in a locked airport for more than 16 hours, almost 250 km from where they were supposed to go. This happened because their private flight was diverted while it was trying to land in Benghazi and ended up landing in Bayda instead.

They said they couldn’t get water or food and hadn’t heard from any Libyan officials during the game, so they chose to fly back to Nigeria instead of playing.

The Libya Football Federation said that the event was not planned and that their players had also had trouble getting to Nigeria four days before this game.

But CAF said Libya broke the rules of the competition, which say that the host association must properly welcome visiting teams by helping them with entry procedures and giving them a bus.

Because Nigeria won the game by a score of 3-0, CAF said Libya should pay a $50,000 fine.

Libya had already complained about how their players and officials were treated when they got to Nigeria for their Oct. 11 qualifier in Uyo. Their flight arrived hours away from the game site, and the players had to wait a long time to get there.

They won that game 1-0. People across the continent thought Libya was playing games by treating them badly before the return game four days later. This was seen as a form of tit-for-tat.

It also brought to light how badly foreign teams are treated everywhere in Africa, whether they are playing for a national team or a club.

This week, CAF president Patrice Motsepe said that his group was thinking about making rules and regulations stricter to stop teams from being disrespectful to visiting teams.

African football is known for being unfair to visiting teams. Common tricks include making them wait in line at immigration when they arrive, giving them bad training facilities, and making them take long, winding bus rides.