Dolphins kicked out of Confederation Cup

Dolphins of Port Harcourt have been thrown out of this year’s CAF Confederation Cup for not honouring last weekend’s game against Club Africain in Tunisia.

Dolphins did not show up at Rades Stadium on Saturday March 14, 2015 at 3pm local time, for the kick-off of the round-of-16 first leg match. And CAF interclub organising committee ruled on Thursday that the club has been eliminated from the competition while other sanctions could be applied.

“Dolphins are thus eliminated without prejudice to other financial sanctions that could be taken by the Committee,” a CAF statement said.

Dolphins protested the walk over after claiming the team arrived in Tunisia on time but were delayed at the airport for two hours. They also claimed that they were then taken on a pointless trip round the streets of Tunisia before arriving at the stadium after walk over formalities had been concluded.

The team had experienced delay before leaving Lagos to Tunisia but called for the match be moved from Saturday, March 14 to Sunday March 15, through the NFF to CAF.

But CAF said the NFF failed to comply with the laws of the continental governing body about preparing for such matches.

“The Committee noted that the Nigeria Football Federation did not observe article 10.2 of Chapter IX of the rules of the competition, which obliges the federation of the visiting team to inform the federation of the host team and CAF of the date of arrival in the capital of the host country at least two weeks prior to the date scheduled for the match. The non-observance of this disposition attracts a fine of $2000,” the statement continued.

“As it stands, the club only informed CAF on 13 March 2015 of the fact that it missed its flight between Port-Harcourt and Lagos, and could only arrive in Tunis on the day of the match without requesting for a postponement of the encounter. Even though the request was not made, CAF proposed to the Tunisian team to delay the kick-off of the match by 30 minutes for the sake of fair-play.

“In view of the above, the Committee did not consider that we were facing a case of force majeure and went on to apply Article 17 of Chapter XI of the regulations, which states: ‘If for any reason whatsoever, a team withdraws from the competition or does not report for a match, except in case of force majeure accepted by the Organizing Committee, or if it refuses to play or leaves the ground before the regular end of the match without the permission of the referee, it shall be considered loser and shall be eliminated from the competition.’”