From Babatunde Koiki, live in Tunisia:
Enyimba FC, currently in Tunisia for their CAF Champions League, second round, second leg encounter against Etoile Sportive du Sahel, have been forced to hire extra security and make alternative feeding and accommodation arrangements in the North African country following unbridled hostility by the home team’s fans and officials.
Club chairman Felix Anyansi-Agwu revealed that his Tunisian agents had forewarned him of the intense hostility of their Etoile du Sahel hosts ahead of their arrival in Tunis.
According to Anyansi-Agwu, after losing 3-0 in Port Harcourt in the first leg, Etoile returned home and told the Tunisian media that they were maltreated in Nigeria by Enyimba who also bribed the Togolese referee and that that was responsible for their heavy loss.
He said: “Etoile had fed the Tunisian media a cocktail of lies. They said that we had provided them with a hotel infested with mosquitoes, rats and coackroaches and had failed to provide them with basic transport. They even went as far as to tell their people that two of our three goals in Port Harcourt were offside because we had bribed the Togolese referee. I am truly amazed and disappointed that a club of their stature could resort to such shocking measures to whip up sentiments against us but we were prepared for them.”
Anyansi-Agwu also spent an hour debunking the allegations in a media chat with Tunisian journalists during the team’s light training session.
He also revealed that reports from his agents had led them to make alternative accommodation and transportation activities.
“We chose the Hotel Habib in Monastir on the outskirts of Sousse in order to provide a comfortable atmosphere for our players. We paid for this hotel ourselves, arranged our own security and transportation because of the negative attitude of our hosts. As you can see, the owner of the hotel is a decent man and staff are very warm and friendly.”
Enyimba will have their second training session on Tuesday evening at 7pm.
Aggregate winners of this encounter will move to the money-spinning group stage of the competition which Enyimba won back to back in 2003 and 2004.
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