Nigeria’s national u-20 team, the Falconets, have asked the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to do a match bonus review of the $100 per match that is presently being paid during the 2018 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup qualifying series.
This new development comes days before the team play Morocco in Benin City on Saturday in the second leg of their qualifier. Both sides played a 1-1 draw in their first leg encounter in Morocco some two weeks ago.
The girls have reportedly been paid a small amount of $300 in the three matches played in their World Cup qualifiers till date and they are adamant is not enough to meet their financial demands.
The situation was corroborated by a source close to the team camp. The source said: “We are using this medium to appeal to the NFF to review the 100 dollars per game match bonus, it is not helping situation among the players. Even though the NFF has decided not to pay the age grade teams again, but that is not to say they can’t review the decision.”
“Initially they used to pay the players like one thousand dollars or more per match, by then they had more money to take care of their bills.
“Don’t let me lie to you some of the players are already bread winners of their families.
“They owed the girls backlog of match bonuses after representing the country at the U-17 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Jordan, and the same set of players graduated to the U-20, instead of clearing it, they decided to pay just 300 dollars (one hundred dollars per match). That is absolutely unfair, but right now the players are only appealing for a slight review as things are not really looking good with the girls financially.” the source added.
The girls are said to have decided to put their financial demands in camp to one side to focus on beating their opponents to honour Edo State Governor, Mr Anthony Obaseki for his financial support to the team.
“We have all decided to come out and play for Governor Obaseki, who has been supporting us financially. We just want to win that game for him. But again, we are not just happy the way the N5 million given to us by the governor was being shared. We will appreciate if the money can be paid into our different personal accounts, in that way there won’t be any reason for anybody to complain,” the source concluded.
Source: Saharareporters
