Nigerian football fans hoping to bring live chickens into Russia's World Cup venues as good-luck charms have been warned off by a government official.

Russian culture and tourism minister Andrei Ermak is quoted by Nigerian media as saying:

Our information centre receives a lot of questions: fans from Nigeria asked if it’s possible to go to the stadium with a chicken, it’s their symbol, the citizens are with them at all matches. We told them that to pass [with] a live chicken, in any case, it is impossible."

 

But he said that Nigerian fans watching their team outside of official stadiums had every right to find a feathered friend, adding:

We will, of course, advise them where the chicken can be bought. We are ready to satisfy the most eccentric inquiries."

 

Punch news site reports that Nigeria fans were turned away from a 2010 World Cup in South Africa "after their demand to take chickens, painted in the nation’s colours into the stadium was refused".