The Sun News On-line

Like white sepulchres, the professional careers of most Nigerian players, who are based in Europe, appear to be glittering on the outside, but in reality, they have little or nothing to be proud of in terms of monetary benefits.

Week in, week out, these players get rave reviews from the media, but they groan under excruciating conditions they have been plunged into by dubious European agents, who feed fat on their sweat in connivance with the players’ clubs.

Friday Nwankwo Kujah, a FIFA-licensed agent, was in France throughout last week to negotiate for an upward review of the contract of Super Eagles’ defender, Onyekachi Apam.

Kujah, who is Apam’s agent, suddenly discovered that the former Rangers International of Enugu star was among the least paid players at Nice, where he has been a regular for the past two seasons, while some players on the reserve bench were earning more than the Nigerian.

After few days of negotiations between Kujah and officials of Nice, Apam was finally liberated following the extension of his contract, which also resulted to a 50-per cent increase in his wages.
Now, the former junior international is among the highest paid players at the modest French League 1 side, but the story of some of his compatriots like Obinna Nsofor, Uwa Echiejile, Sani Kaita and Brown Ideye, who featured for the Flying Eagles at the last World Youth Championship in Canada has remained as pitiable as that of Apam before he got a better deal two weeks ago.

"I shed tears each time I travel to Europe and discover that some European agents have capitalised on the naivety of some of our upcoming footballers to put them in perpetual poverty in spite of the fact that the clubs have the resources to pay them what they are really worth," Kujah told Sunday Sunsport a day after returning from France.

Continuing, he said: "I’m agent to some players in the national team, but Apam, Echiejile, Nsofor and Ideye are examples of players I know that have been shortchanged by their clubs in connivance with some agents in Europe.
"I travelled to France recently because Apam and I discovered that some reserve players at Nice were earning more than him, who has been playing regularly for the club for the past two seasons. It was that bad.

"Initially, officials of Nice were reluctant to increase his pay until the coach threatened to resign if the management refuses to give Apam and one other striker a better deal.
"So, the pressure was on the club’s management, and as you are aware, contracts cannot be reviewed without inserting some clauses. Nice actually wanted to tie Apam down till 2014, but I refused. We later agreed that the player could leave for another club if the offer is right.
"After the review of his contract, Apam is now one of the highest paid players at Nice, because he got a 50-per cent increase in his wages.

"The agent, who handled Apam’s first contract with Nice swindled him and even lied that he did not get a dime from the deal. So, immediately I got to France, I asked the officials of Nice to give me the contract papers to look into. And we discovered that the dubious agent made so much at the expense of Apam. So, what Apam did was to write a letter to the agent to severe his relationship with him.
"Another player of mine in Europe, who plays for Rennes of France, Uwa Echiejile, has also written to his European agent to stop parading himself as his agent because of the same problem Apam faced at Nice.
"Also, Obinna Nsofor may likely sack his European agent after I finished holding talks with members of his family in Nigeria about his low wages in Italy," Kujah continued.
"Before now, I used to hand over my players to European agents, but I have discovered that they are the worst criminals in the world. They tell European clubs that our players are so poor that they would accept whatever they are given because the foreign currency, when converted to naira, would be seen as big money by the player concerned.

"There situation is totally unacceptable. I would rather want a situation where my players would play and get equal treatment with their teammates.
"I will soon travel to France again to have talks with the officials of Monaco and Victor Ikpeba about reviewing Sani Kaita’s contract with the French club. How can they be paying Kaita peanuts and still insist that he must be paying his house rent from the meagre wage they pay him?" he queried.
However, of all the cases he has seen in Europe, Kujah believes that the situation of former Flying Eagles’ star, Brown Ideye, requires an urgent solution from relevant authorities.

"Ideye is a player that makes me shed tears each time I remember his situation in Europe," the FIFA agent continued. "This is a player that plays almost like Daniel Amokachi while he was playing in the national team. But some unscrupulous agents are about to destroy the career of that bundle of talent.
"I spoke with Ideye in Canada during the last World Youth Championship about his moving to Rennes to replace John Utaka, who was to leave for Portsmouth then. But before I knew it, a dubious agent got him confused not to sign for Rennes. He rather took him to Holland for trials, where he could not make it eventually.
"I later learnt that he is now in Zurich playing for an obscure club, where little or nothing is being heard about him," Kujah added.