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From Sikhumbuzo Moyo in Congo Brazzaville
IN a dramatic turn of events FC Platinum’s flight to Owando for their Total Caf Champions League first round first leg encounter against AS Otoho tomorrow was aborted yesterday with the players and the rest of the travelling party on board.

The flight was aborted allegedly due to unfavorable weather conditions as it started to drizzle just as the team got into the plane. Also, the lighting system at the landing airport was said to be in a deplorable state if the team had decided to fly later last evening.

A fuming FC Platinum chairman Evans Mthombeni said they were frustrated and angry at the sudden ugly turn of events.

“I think everyone is affected and frustrated by the sad developments after waiting for almost four hours at the airport for the flight we had to be told by the pilot that they could not take off for safety reasons. The airport in Owando is a small one and there is no proper lighting meaning if we had to take off later today we were likely going to land in darkness which we could not risk. So our trip had to be aborted due to safety reasons but we are generally frustrated by all this,” said Mthombeni last night.

FC Platinum chairman Evans Mthombeni addresses the media at Maya Maya airport in Congo Brazzaville last night

He said if conditions don’t improve by today, they might have to play the match on Monday since Caf allows that.

“Caf allows that we can delay a match by a day which means we can even play on Monday if weather conditions don’t improve tomorrow (today),” said a cleary unamused Mthombeni.

Pure Platinum’s stay here in Congo Brazzaville has been very miserable from the day the team touched down at the Maya Maya Airport on Thursday.

“As a club there are a number of issues that we feel our hosts should have done better for us. This is football for goodness sake; it’s not war. When we arrived here we did not have an escort while we had to hire taxis to the training venue after transport which ought to have taken us there suddenly disappeared. Surely how does the rest of the world take us if we behave and act like this? It’s unfortunate really that our brothers chose to bring shame to the whole of Africa and the game of football,” said Mthombeni.

Winners of the twolegged fixtures go through to the lucrative group stage of the tournament while the losing team drops to the less palatable Confederations Cup.