The Sun News On-line

For winning a ticket to the Beijing Olympics, the Super Falcons were paid a paltry $700 while their male counterparts, the Dream Team IV got a whopping $5,000 each for achieving the same feat.

That the Super Falcons have won more laurels for Nigeria than their male counterparts, the Super Eagles, is not contestable. While the Eagles had only lifted the Africa Cup of Nations twice, 1980 and 1994, the Falcons had not only won all the five editions of the women’s version, but also, have maintained undisputed dominance in the African continent in all competitions in the female category of the round leather game.
But the female national team have not been fairly treated in terms of motivation and welfare packages when compared to their male counterparts, who have achieved far less, but often over pampered with lavishing welfare packages.

Two-time African Female Footballer of the Year and one-time hottest shot in the Super Falcons’ team, Mercy Akide-Udoh, has condemned in strong terms the whopping disparity in the welfare packages of the male and female national teams.
In an exclusive chat with Saturday Sunspot in Abuja recently where she came to cheer the Falcons to victory against the Black Queens of Ghana in their decisive Beijing Olympics qualifying tie, the gangling forward called on the authorities to act fast to improve on the welfare of female players so as to motivate them to do well at the forthcoming Olympics.

Akide-Udoh, who blamed the Falcons’ inability to translate their dominance in Africa to the global stage on the poor treatment given to the team, lamented how the team’s qualification for the Beijing Olympics was downplayed, while there were so much hype and jumbo reward for their male counterparts, the Dream Team IV, who faced the same make-or-break situation as the Falcons for the Olympics ticket.

Hear her: "The match against the Black Queens of Ghana was a make-or-break encounter. If the Falcons had not won that match, Nigeria would not have qualified for the female’s football event at the Olympics. But despite winning the game, the whole place (referring to Brifina Hotel, the Abuja camp of the Falcons) was like a mourning house.

"The football authorities have to do something to encourage the girls to do more at the Olympics. If it were the male team that achieved that feat, there would have been an all-night party for the players and everybody in the camp that night.
"The way you treat your players matters a lot. It is not enough to put the players in camp, their welfare also counts. The players need money to take care of their needs and their dependents. Some of the players are the breadwinners in their respective families.
"In Europe, players are placed on salaries. I am not trying to compare Europe with Nigeria, because Europeans are more advanced than we are. But a little gesture can go a long way in pushing the morale of the girls high.

Interestingly, the Sports Minister, Dr. Rahman Abdullahi Gimba, had announced a jumbo bonus of $4,000 each for the Dream Team as winning bonus before their crucial Olympic qualifier against the Amaglug-lug of South Africa. But there was no such incentive to the Falcons who went through the same difficult hurdle against the Black Queens of Ghana to secure the ticket to Beijing a fortnight ago.
"We are not asking to be treated like the Super Eagles or our male counterparts, but we should be given a little motivation. Ordinarily, the Falcons ought to be treated better because they are girls.
"You know, when you have a female child and a male child, you have to pay more attention to the female child, otherwise, she will start to look outside. The same thing happens in football. If the authorities are not paying attention to the welfare of the Falcons, the girls will lose interest in the country’s football.

"A situation whereby the players fight for ordinary daily allowance when they go for international event is very bad. Such things demoralise the players. Take for instance, at the last World Cup in the United States, everybody saw how the Falcons played against the American team, even though they did not train before the match. That shows that if they have a little motivation, they can rule the world.

"The football authorities should even pay more attention to the Falcons because most times, they are the ones that bring glory to the nation, but because they are females, nobody reckons with them."
The leggy striker stressed on the need for quality international friendly matches for the Super Falcons to put the team in top shape for the challenges at the forthcoming Olympics.
"We still have a long way to go, qualification is just one hurdle crossed. There has to be a lot of friendly games to fine-tune the team ahead of the competition proper. We must not relax just because we have the ticket to the Olympics.

"Our problem has been that whenever there’s no competition, there’s nothing for the girls except for club engagements. The team must go into camp at least, three months to the Olympics. When I say camp, I don’t just mean going to the neighbouring nations. I’m talking about somewhere in Europe where they can play a lot of top friendly games that will help them prepare well for the Olympics.
"It hurts me a lot that we have not been able to translate our superiority beyond Africa.

We have a lot of talented players when compared to United States. Sometimes, I sit down and try to compare the players we have in the country with those of other countries like the United States, Germany, Sweden and so on, and I realise that we have more quality players than most of them.
"The point is that we are not building our talents. That’s the edge those nations have ahead of us. They play a lot of friendly games, they are always in camp and their players are being treated well," she concluded.