The Former National Cricket coach Cyril Panda who is also the desk officer of the association assigned by Sports Council yesterday told Awoko in an exclusive interview that the Cricket team went for their visas to the wrong zone and that was a contributory reason why they were not given the visas.
He said the original place they should have gone to was Ghana but they decided to go to Nigeria because of the assurances the president of the Nigeria Cricket Association had given to them that he will do everything possible for them to secure the visas.
It was on this grounds that they decided to go for the visas without informing the Sports council and the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Coach Panda explained that they decided to go on their own without any documents from government and this was where their problems started.
Panda also stated that Secretary General Benka-Coker went to Nigeria for a month which he said was too much time to secure visas for such a world cup playoff competition.
Panda disclosed that if they should have had the right documents it would have taken at least a week to get the visas. He questioned what the Secretary General was doing in Nigeria when he never even sent the message quickly that they refuse them the visas only after the eleven hours.
Panda accused the Secretary General of not going to Nigeria for the Visas but on holidays as he has relatives in Nigeria.
After that he said “now they want to make me the scapegoat for nothing I know of.”
He argued against the claim “that somebody called them from ICC explaining to them that I have hands in that … all that is not true they are making up such stories to give the association a good face as they failed to do their assignments.”
He also revealed that the actual person who should explain what happened is the Secretary General of the association Benka Coker as he went to Nigeria and Ghana to secure the Visas.
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