Monrovia - The Liberia Football Association (LFA) says its delegation to Calabar will leave Monrovia before midday on Friday instead of Thursday.

LFA President Musa Bility told FrontPageAfrica that they have been encountering a litany of problems ranging from landing right to flight cancelation.

The 125-seater chartered flight, which was provided by Cellcom, reportedly received a lucrative offer, hence, turned Liberia down.

Bility said the FA then managed to secure a 99-seater aircraft from Burkina Faso which got landing rights from Accra to Monrovia but couldn’t agree to a request from the FA to leave Ouagadougou at a designated time.

A 94-seater Ghanaian Starbus aircraft, which was finally secured, was tactfully denied landing rights to Calabar.

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), which accused the LFA of not communicating its travel itinerary on Tuesday, finally revealed that the Margaret Ekpo international airport in Calabar closes at 8:00PM.

This followed a frantic effort by Dr. Al-Hassan Conteh, Liberia’s ambassador to Nigeria, and staff with the NFF. With departure set at 5:00PM, the team wouldn’t have arrived in Calabar in time for check-in.

NFF general-secretary Barrister Musa Amadu had told Complete Sport (completesportsnigeria.com) that the LFA was maintaining secrecy about their travel itinerary.

“I really don’t know what they (Liberia) are up to. They have not communicated their arrival date to us.

“However, we are not bothered about that. Rather, we’re concerned with preparing our team optimally to achieve victory. Whenever the Liberia delegation arrives, we will be ready for them,” he said.

But LFA Vice President Musa Shannon played-down the report and revealed that the NFF was shocked to have learnt that the FA sent an advance team to the match venue. Shannon added that deputy secretary-general Alphonso Armah sent countless of emails to Nigeria about their travel plan.

Both countries have only been involved in Fifa World Cup and Olympic Games qualifiers as well as friendly games. They met once at the 2002 Africa Cup of Nations finals when Julius Aghahowa’s goal separated both teams in a group phase match in Mali.

Liberia need a high-score draw or a win (neither of which they have ever recorded in Nigeria) to turn the table and bar the Super Eagles from next year’s football party in South Africa.

The LFA now need travel mercy but their trip is probably a fate worse than death or a Daniel come to judgment. Only time will tell what God has in stored for the game.