Ministry to probe NFF over claims it cheated Eagles players in payment of bonus

The permanent secretary of the Sports ministry, Christian Ohaa, said on Thursday that the latest pay row over Super Eagles’ Algeria win bonus, will be ‘looked into’ by the Ministry.

This is following a reports published on an African football website on Wednesday that some Super Eagles players have alleged they were shortchanged by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in the payment of their win bonus for the 2018 World Cup qualifier against Algeria.

In response to the report, the NFF Spokesman, Ademola Olajire and the Super Eagles Team administrator, Dayo Enebi Achor, both claimed the story was a fabricated one, while also stating that officials as well as captain and vice-captain of the national team were at a meeting held in March in Kaduna where the decision of paying the players N1million for home wins was taken.

And now, the topmost supervising body of sports in the country has disclosed its readiness to investigate the allegations.

“Based on the amount released to the NFF, nobody should shortchange the players again and I can tell you that we will look into it, I just got the report now and we will look into it,” Ohaa said.

Read Also: NFF denies shortchanging Eagles

The Super Eagles’ win bonus is supposedly $5,000 per player, which would be N1,525,000 when converted at the official N305 to the dollar, but the players received a million Naira each instead, owing to the claim of NFF that bonuses for home wins have been pegged at a flat fee of one million Naira.

However, Samson Siasia, who was Eagles coach at the time of the said meeting in Kaduna, has rubbished the claim by NFF.

When contacted, he told reporters, “I don’t know anything about one million (Naira)!”

“The agreement was that they will pay the equivalent of dollars at the bank rate, official rate. I don’t know about anything else,” Siasia said.

RipplesNigeria ….without borders, without fears

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now