CAF Champions League: Rivers Utd Flies To Mali,’Morrow

Rivers United will fly out to Bamako, Mali, tomorrow for a CAF Champions League preliminary round clash against hosts AS Real Bamako at the weekend.
Officials of the club had confirmed that ‘The Pride of Rivers’ would  fly out  for the West African derby from Ibadan where they played shooting stars in a week six ficture of the 2017 Nigeria professional football league, NPFL.
“We are not going back to Port Harcourt after the NPFL matchday 6 defeat at Shooting Stars. Instead, we will head straight for Lagos from where we’ll fly out to Mali on Thursday,” Rivers United coach Stanley Eguma said.
Secretary of the club, Ahmed Abdulrahman further added they were not yet sure of the airline that will airlift the team for the Mali trip.
“What I can say is that we are travelling on Thursday. The airline that will fly the team I do not know yet, he said.
Meanwhile, Officials of Malian club AS Real Bamako have kept a close watch on Rivers United ahead of this weekend’s CAF Champions League clash in Bamako.
Real Bamako hosts Rivers United in a preliminary round first leg match of the Champions League on Saturday.
The officials (one of them a cameraman) were spotted at the Lekan Salami Stadium during the club’s training session on Saturday,  and 24 hours later at the same venue when Rivers United lost 2-1 to Shooting Stars in an NPFL contest.
Chief coach of Rivers United Willy Udube said he was informed of the development which ‘should not be a thing of worry for our fans.
“I was informed that three officials from AS Real Bamako watched both our training session last weekend,” he said.
“To be honest, this should not be a thing of worry for our fans because we knew such a thing would happen; I will say it is normal practice.
“As a former footballer myself, I saw such things happen countless times when we played on the continent.
“We have been working hard ourselves to get a good result in Mali against AS Real Bamako and I am sure we will get a positive result.”