Nigeria arriving at Confed Cup day before opener

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Drained and in disarray, Nigeria will finally arrive in Brazil for the Confederations Cup on Sunday, with less than 36 hours to prepare for its opening match.

A planned flight to Brazil on Thursday was canceled after the African champions threatened to go on strike in a row with team bosses over bonus payments.

With the discord rumbling, the squad finally traveled on Saturday from Namibia to Johannesburg for the first leg of their journey to Brazil for the eight-nation warm-up event for the 2014 World Cup.

But even the arrival in the South Africa didn't go smoothly, with the Nigeria Football Federation saying in a statement that "a first batch (of players) from Windhoek to Johannesburg inexplicably missed their flight."

But that group reached Johannesburg in time to catch the flight to Sao Paolo where the squad is due to land late Saturday and immediately fly on to Belo Horizonte.

That flight is not due to arrive in the city, which is north of Rio de Janeiro, until 4 a.m. Sunday and the squad will then have to drive 75 minutes from the airport to its hotel, the federation said.

After spending a day traveling across three nations, coach Stephen Keshi plans a training session hours after their arrival, with Nigeria's opening game against Oceania champion Tahiti then kicking off at 4 p.m. on Monday at the Estadio Mineirao.

Former team press officer Colin Udoh, a broadcaster with African network SuperSport, said the saga was embarrassing after recent successes for Nigeria on the pitch.

"Over the past few years we have come to have an image of stability of sorts," Udoh said from Belo Horizonte.

"Just when the team is on a high — winning the African Nations and topping their World Cup qualifying group this happens. It's a national embarrassment. The blame should be on both the players and the federation. There's plenty of blame to go around."

The federation statement on Saturday stressed that it remained "miffed but concerned" about the stand-off "despite a mutual understanding with the team's management on a 50 percent cut" on bonuses.

Udoh said the federation is in dire need of funding from the government and sponsors to meet their financial obligations, and believes this latest conflict will hinder the drive for revenue.

"The image this sends outside doesn't help to attract lucrative sponsorship," Udoh said.

"When the team won the African Nations people were falling over themselves to give (the players) money, houses and cars. Now they need money to get to the tournament and no one has been coming forward with any."