Naijagossiper

Tomorrow’s friendly match between 2018 World Cup qualifiers Nigeria and Argentina will kick off by 5pm Nigerian time, just as officials have also confirmed skipper Mikel Obi will return to the Eagles starting XI after he was rested for Friday’s game in Algeria. “The game will start at 7pm local time, which is 5pm in Nigeria,” Eagles spokesman Toyin Ibitoye informed. It was further gathered that skipper Mikel who was left out of the final World cup qualifier in Algeria on Friday, will return to the starting XI against Argentina on Tuesday. The Eagles arrived Russia via chartered flight on Saturday from Algeria. Weather conditions are similar to the cold the team encountered in Constantine, Algeria – lowest 6-9 degrees and warmest 17-19 degrees. Organisers say there will be maximum changes of six players per team for this match. Contact us@kmedianews@yahoo.com

Four-time champions Italy face missing out on the World Cup for the first time since 1958, a potential national humiliation likened to the “apocalypse” by the team’s fanatical supporters. Italy need to overturn a 1-0 play-off first-leg defeat against Sweden at the San Siro on Monday. National coach Gian Piero Ventura insists his team will not falter but the 69-year-old gave his critics more ammunition in the build-up to the game by claiming he was “amazed people are surprised we’re in the play-offs”. “We knew from the moment we picked Spain in the group phase that we’d be heading for the play-offs. Nobody can be surprised we reached this point. “I realise this is the way it works in Italy, but I didn’t expect all this,” he added of the reaction generated by the humiliation of an impending exit. “We started out with people talking about the apocalypse.” Italy were second to Spain in the group phase and never recovered from their confidence-denting 3-0 defeat early Septe...

  The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) have said that the economic performance of Nigeria was crucial in realising the dream for a single currency in the West African region. Mr. Dimitri Sanga, Director of the Sub-Regional Office for West Africa of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (SRO/WA-ECA) said this in an interview with our correspondent. He spoke on the sidelines of the meeting to establish a network of economic journalists for West Africa, in Dakar, Senegal. Sanga said that the ECA as the “Think Tank” of Africa has been tasked to find out what it would take to accelerate the Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS) single currency dream. He said the report will be released soon. He noted that Nigeria constitutes more than 70 percent of the GDP of the West African region, with a population of 180 million, and would play a significant role in facilitating the process of achieving a single currency for the sub-region. ...

In the latest update on the devastating 7.3 magnitude earthquake that rocked Iranian and Iraqi border on Sunday night, more than 200 people were killed and hundreds more injured. The quake triggered landslides that hindered rescue efforts, officials said Monday. The quake hit 30 kilometres (19 miles) southwest of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan at around 9.20 pm (1820 GMT) on Sunday, when many people would have been at home, the US Geological Survey said. On Monday morning, Iran gave a provisional toll of more than 200 dead, while only six others were reported killed on the Iraq side of the border. “There are 207 dead and around 1,700 injured”, all in Iran’s province of Kermanshah, Behnam Saidi, the deputy head of the Iranian government’s crisis unit set up to handle the response to the quake, told state television. Mojtaba Nikkerdar, the deputy governor of Kermanshah, said authorities there were “in the process of setting up three emergency relief camps”. Iran’s emergency services chief...