Nigeria’s male and female national teams, Super Eagles and Super Falcons have both received opportunities of playing international friendlies in the city of Baltimore, USA, sequel to arrangement sealed by Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and the government of Maryland State.
The agreement was reached during a meeting in Baltimore between NFF president, Amaju Melvin Pinnick and the lieutenant-governor of Maryland, Boyd Rutherford, who admitted that both parties can further cooperate on a number of collaborative areas.
Megasportsarena.com gathered that , who was in Baltimore on a specific invitation by the Government of Maryland, is enthusiastic about the agreement and wished his hosts good luck in their desire to stage some matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Points highlighted during the meeting included a number of co-operation activities and programmes designed to enhance the development of football in the country Nigeria and the State of Maryland, which is an important mid-Atlantic State in the United States.
The meeting comes hot on the heels of the Falcons’ recent debut in the USWNT Summer Series in the State of Texas, where the nine-time African queens faced four-time world champions and four-time Olympic Games gold medalists USA for the first time in a friendly match.
Although the Falcons lost the game 2-0, they mounted a spirited fight in the city of Austin, few fays after losing 1-0 to Jamaica and drawing 3-3 draw with Portugal in nearby Houston, while their male counterparts will this Saturday play against Mexico in the State of California.
A press release from the NFF’s communications department disclosed that Pinnick’s trip was premised on the enormous respect that the Government of Maryland has for Nigeria as a nation and the country’s football governing body as an institution.
On his part, Rutherford confessed to being a great fan of the Eagles, who he recalled dazzled the globe during their impressive debut at the FIFA World Cup in the USA 27 years ago, while the Nigerian under-23 squad won Africa’s first Olympic Games football gold also in Atlanta, Georgia two years later.
The statement added that NFF’s latest agreement includes a minimum of one friendly match each for the Eagles and Falcons in FIFA windows, as well as utilization of the platform to create a relationship in broader areas of economic development.
It is also aimed at leveraging of the Baltimore-Maryland 2026 platform/assets to create added value for broader activations of sponsorship doors in Nigerian football, focus on youth development programmes as well as development of relations to cover stadium management.
Baltimore, officially the largest city in the State of Maryland, is a candidate for hosting of matches of the 48-team 2026 FIFA World Cup finals, which has already been awarded to the triumvirate of USA, Mexico and Canada.
