Previously, we shared news about a soccer team that was on their way to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Unfortunately for the Nigerian men’s soccer team, it was reported that their sports ministry had problems with making the proper payments to the airline. Subsequently, it was revealed that “the team had assumed it could simply buy plane tickets to Rio at the last minute — just like Nigerians do in their home country to book travel.” Of course this wasn’t going to work when the rest of the world also was traveling to the same destination for an event as large as the Olympics.
On Wednesday night this week, Delta Airlines received notification of this issue. Though it could not move the soccer team on to their regular commercial flights, because they were full, the airline was able to locate an NBA charter plane that could fly the team. According to Delta, no request for payment was made. The plane left Atlanta Thursday morning, and arrived in Manaus, Brazil, just hours before Nigeria’s evening match with Japan on Thursday. Despite arriving so late, the Nigerian men beat Japan 5-4.
An interesting factoid is that this exact same charter plane will be flying the United States men’s basketball team back to the US from Brazil.
How do you feel about what Delta did?
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4 comments
Delta is free to do whatever they want but it’s just more evidence of the victim mentality in the USA and corruption in both the Olympic movement and Nigeria. Nigeria is one of the wealthiest nations in Africa. It seems someone “lost” the funds to pay for their flight. If Nigeria really wanted their soccer team in Rio it would have happened. Better to use this episode as a reason for reform and accountability. I would rather see compassion and sympathy for people who can’t help their unfortunate circumstances rather than bail out the thief who misappropriated the travel funds.
Good on Delta!
Hopefully this generates a lot of goodwill for Delta and a lot of questions for the incompetence of the Nigerian government and it’s Olympic committee.
Kudos to Delta for this kind act