Super Eagles Bonus Wahala: The True Story — Yola

Former National Sports Commission (NSC) top gun and immediate past Special Adviser to former director general NSC Patrick Ekeji, Abba Yola who worked very closely with the Presidential Task Force headed by Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi has opened up on the bonus row rocking the Nigerian team and the Nigeria Football Federation. Yola was knowledgeable in the scheme of things that led to the jerking up of the Eagles’ bonuses which is now pitching the players and the federation. “Let me take you to the genesis of this bonus issue.

In 2009 when the late president Umaru Yar’Adua constituted the Presidential Task Force, their mandate was to look at that team and see that they qualify for the World Cup in South Africa. The first assignment the Task Force did was to visit the players in London in May 2009 to discuss with them how best can the team be moved forward to ensure that at least we qualify for the World Cup. There were to play Ireland at the Craven Cottage in London.

I was with them and the chairman of the PTF, Gov Rotimi Amaechi addressed the players and told them that the president has mandated them to meet with them and find out what were their problems. In his response, the captain of the team, Kanu Nwankwo said there are three issues making it difficult for

them to move forward. Number one he said was lack of Insurance Cover, two; lack of adequate and experienced technical department and three was the issue of bonuses.” He began.

Continuing, he said: “Kanu said for the past 15 years we have been on $5,000 as bonus and that at least the team deserved a raise. He said if you look at it, government has also been raising estacode allowances for public servants. Kanu complained that for 15 years they have been stagnant on $5,000. He appealed to the governor to please talk to Mr President to help raise their bonuses. The governor agreed and said when he comes to Nigeria he will definitely speak with the president.

The PTF then recommended that the allowances of the players be jerked up to $10,000 while that of the coaches be $20,000. It was agreed that the difference between $5,000 and $10,000 dollars will be paid by the PTF all through the World Cup programme and up to the end of the programme while the Nigeria Football Association pay the balance of $5 and $10,000 because at that time they didn’t have the money. And if they had been told to pay $10,000 and $20,000 they would not have the money to pay.

So, the PTF said we will now give the difference and that was exactly what the PTF did all through. Sometimes, the PTF settled its part before even the NFF releases its own part of the $5,000 and 10,000. We take $5,000 from the PTF for players and $10,000 for the coaches; add them and give to the NFF. We don’t know how they disburse it or what they do with it but the PTF paid the money up to the end of the World Cup.”

He revealed that the second agreement between the PTF and the NFF was that immediately after the World Cup, the difference should be captured in the subsequent budget of the NFF. “It was agreed that they should write to the government that there is a policy that the players are going to be on the agreement. Besides if you have a World Cup programme, you should know when you are going to play qualifiers, so, it becomes just a matter of inserting this into the budget and pick your money. But somewhere along the line, I do not know what happened.

It is either they did not do it or they simply did not want to tell people the true position of things. But after the World Cup they are supposed to be putting this difference in their budget, take their money and ofcourse give the players. So, the players are absolutely right to ask for this because it was a policy and not something they woke up to say give us our money. They should not be sanctioned or punished because it is a policy and captured in the PTF recommendation.

They have been paying before. So, from where did they get the money they were paying before? Now they are saying they have slashed the players’ bonuses. Did they also slash their estacodes? They pay themselves full estacodes up till today. If they are doing that where is the money coming from? They really have to consider because without the players there won’t be trips. That is the arrangement before now between the government and the NFF and it was working until this last minute when they decided they cannot afford to do that.”           

He debunked insinuations that the federal government does not fund sports enough. “I

laugh when people say government does not give enough money to sports. It is ridiculous and not right. Government pumps in over N2bn annually to the NFF and they also raise almost N1.2bn in sponsorships money yet they still write for reimbursement from government after competitions.”

Chairman Media and Publicity of the NFF, Emeka Inyama responding to a similar statement by House of Reps’ sports committee chairman over the bonus row said the federation had met with the players to intimate them on reasons to slash their bonuses. “The NFF President was very transparent in explaining to the coach and the players why the bonus had to be slashed.

The NFF was allocated the sum of N1.8b for this year, out of which N1.5b is for sporting activities and we have been told that the sum of N790m given to us to prosecute the Nations Cup in South Africa would be deducted from that sum. In the event, we are left with the sum of N710m for our sporting activities for the whole of this year, how are we to service our different National Teams. (Super Eagles, U-23 Men, U-20 Men, U-17 Boys, Super Falcons, U-20 Girls, U-17 Girls, Beach Soccer, Home-based Eagles, U-13 Boys) from this amount, for the rest of this year.

- See more at: http://leadership.ng/news/220613/super-eagles-bonus-brouhaha-true-story-yola#sthash.dSFzACeW.dpuf