The inaugural Tinapa invitational Football Fiesta will be held in Abuja on July 26-27. The participating teams are
1.) Manchester United- Reigning English and European Champions
2.) Portsmouth– Current FA Cup champions.
3.) Kano Pillars– Nigerian champions. They won their first ever domestic championship last season, and will represent Nigeria in the Champions League along with Heartland FC. The Pillars won the league with 64 points, while Heartland finished with sixty three.
Kano Pillars will play Portsmouth on Saturday at the National Stadium ( 4pm )
Manchester United will play Portsmouth on Sunday at 7.30 pm. The two will also clash for the Charity Shield on August 10.
Initial reports made the tournament out to be a four team competition with the Nigerian national team also supposed to take part. But three teams it will be – Pompey, United and Kano Pillars.
The games are expected to attract capacity crowds, with the Nigerian public reportedly excited at watching high quality live football. Manchester United in particular have a huge fan base in Nigeria.
Portsmouth, as we all know, have the Nigerian duo of John Utaka and Nwankwo Kanu.
I’ll keep you posted on the results.
Ok- here are the results as promised.
Portsmouth 5-0 Kano Pillars ( John Utaka, Ben Sahar, Nwankwo Kanu, Peter Crouch*2)
Manchester United 2-1 Portsmouth ( Chris Eagles, Carlos Tevez/ Jermain Defoe)
United apparently got £2m while Pompey got £750k for making it to Africa.
However crowd attendance was poor- locals attributed it to poor publicity and high ticket prices.