The Africa Cup of Nations will see a true heavyweight clash as hosts Ivory Coast take on Nigeria in Group A.

Back on Saturday, Les Éléphants started AFCON off well, notching a 2-0 win over Guinea-Bissau in the tournament’s opening match.

However, one day later the Super Eagles were stunned by Equatorial Guinea, and needed a Victor Osimhen goal to come back for a 1-1 draw.

That leaves Nigeria in need of a result — and possibly even a win — to avoid a must-win situation during the final round of group-stage matches. A loss would leave a star-studded side on the brink of elimination.

For Ivory Coast, meanwhile, a win would guarantee a place in the knockout stages, and a draw in Group A’s other match would secure the top spot in the section.

Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the match.

Ivory Coast vs. Nigeria (AFCON)
When: Thursday, Jan. 18
Where: Olympic Stadium of Ebimpé (Ivory Coast)
Time: 12 p.m. ET
Channel/streaming: beIN SPORTS, Fubo

Companies seeking to acquire Broadcast rights of the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) have been invited to approach the league body with offers for negotiation.

Chairman of the NPFL, Hon Gbenga Elegbeleye on Wednesday clarified that the adopted marketing approach of the board is for non-exclusivity which has not foreclosed the signing up of more rights holders.

Elegbeleye described as shocking, claims by an individual alleging that there was an offer for $11m dollars to the NPFL for the rights before the StarTimes deal was executed.

“For the avoidance of doubt and for public records, the NPFL and StarTimes deal took months to conclude and all through the duration of our negotiations, nobody approached us with any offer”, explained the NPFL Chairman.

He further narrated efforts of the defunct Interim Management Committee (IMC) to attract a Broadcast partner including getting the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) to broker a meeting with Supersport which at the end didn’t express interest in taking up the offer.

“The NPFL has an office in Abuja and the facilitator of the said $11m offer knows this place and has contacts of the NFF President. We are still very much open to negotiating as our deal with StarTimes provides for a third-party investor. 

“Let the person please come to our office or to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) because we are still open for more partnerships in the Broadcast space”.

The NPFL boss explained that the unbundling of the broadcast bouquet has made it possible to accommodate multiple partners

“It is obvious that we have unbundled the broadcast products and segmented the number of matches any rights owner can show every matchday. So there is still a window to accommodate genuine interests in our league broadcast partnership”, declared Elegbeleye, who also is the NFF’s Second Vice President.

Faulting claims that the League fail foul of the Public Procurement Act which governs sales of government assets in the country, the former member of the Federal House of Representatives, said, “The NPFL is incorporated as a private company limited by guarantee at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and is not captured in government funding.

“We do not receive funding from the Government but run our programme from money generated through sponsorships and we operate a transparent system that accounts for sponsors/investors’ funds to maintain the integrity of the league.

“In any case, we have made sufficient noise right from the inception of the IMC and we were able to have the very successful Super 6 on television, so there’s no person in the industry who is not aware that the League hasn’t been on television for the past six years. Where were they”? he retorted.

So far, the NPFL has secured two Broadcast Partners in Propel Sports Africa (PSA) for the Over The Top (OTT) platform and StarTimes for the Direct To Home (DTH) cable platform.

UEFA will introduce connected technology into the Adidas FUSSBALLLIEBE ball for Euro 2024 to improve the accuracy of semi-automated offside VAR decisions, as well as provide additional tracking data for players.

The same technology was used by FIFA at the World Cup in the Adidas Al Rihla ball, and it was able to conclusively prove that Cristiano Ronaldo did not make any contact for Portugal’s opener in their 2-0 win over Uruguay.

UEFA’s semi-automated offside system being used in the Champions League does not have a chip inside the ball, meaning Artificial Intelligence (AI) alone has to make up for any issues in accurately detecting the kick-point for offside.

Semi-automated offside uses a series of cameras in the stadium roof to track all 22 players on the pitch and map their position, so the VAR does not need to manually create the offside lines. A sensor is in the centre of the Adidas ball, recording data 500 times a second to detect when the ball has been kicked. It is intended to be quicker, more accurate and provide a 3D visualisation of the decision.

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Serie A is the only other major league to use semi-automated offside, without a chipped ball, while LaLiga has confirmed it plans to introduce it next season and Premier League clubs are expected to hold a vote in March after continuing trials through this campaign.

While Adidas provides the official ball for both FIFA and UEFA, Puma is the supplier for LaLiga and Serie A, with Nike for the Premier League, Derbystar for the Bundesliga and Kipsta in Ligue 1.

The time needed to make a VAR offside decision should be reduced from an average of 70 seconds to 25, while fans inside the stadiums and viewers watching on television will be provided with a 3D animation to clearly show the offside.

Clubs in England’s top flight rejected a proposal to introduce the technology at the start of this season, unconvinced it was the right time. But the Premier League has suffered a series of offside errors this calendar year, although semiautomated offside would not have prevented the failure to correct Luis Díaz’s wrongly disallowed goal for Liverpool against Tottenham Hotspur as that was a communication error.

However, tracking the ball would have enabled the VAR to make a decision on Anthony Gordon’s offside position for his winning goal for Newcastle United against Arsenal.