Stranded New Zealand Metro to finally depart
Rocky Khan, captain of the New Zealand Metro team, addressing journalists outside the Stanley Sarova hotel on October 02, 2014. PHOTO | MARTIN MUKANGU | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- Team was given option of departing either on Sunday night or Tuesday night.
The New Zealand Metro team will leave the country on Thursday night after being stranded in Nairobi for two days.
The 11 players, who took part in this year’s Safaricom Safari Sevens that ended on Sunday, had failed to secure a flight to Auckland on Tuesday night.
The team has been staying at the Sarova Stanley hotel.
They will board a Kenya Airways flight to China, where they will take a connection flight to New Zealand.
According to team skipper and former All Blacks Sevens star Rocky Khan, the team was meant to fly out immediately after the tournament on Sunday night but were given the option of delaying their departure to Tuesday night.
“The coach, physio and referee chose to fly out that night, but the rest of us choose to stay and travel on Tuesday night,” said Khan.
NO DIRECT FLIGHT
However, drama unfolded on Tuesday. Hours before they were meant to leave the hotel, they received a call from Victor Walgwe, who was in charge of the team’s traveling arrangements, informing them that there was no direct flight from Dubai to Auckland or Australia.
This prompted Khan to tweet, “Kenya Rugby Union flew us over here to play and now aren’t flying us back home to NZ. Help?"
The tweet attracted a lot of comments on Twitter, with many blasting KRU for abandoning the players, while New Zealand online news outlet 3News also carried a story claiming that KRU would not pay tickets for the players.
