Stories by Joe Apu
The Nigeria Football Federation, NFF and its premium partner Aiteo Group in a bid to save the Federation Cup yesterday signed a N2.5 billion sponsorship deal that will see the competition run without hitches for the next five years.
Given the new deal which had extended Aiteo Group sponsorship with the football governing body in Nigeria, the tournament would be renamed the Aiteo Cup .This was confirmed after a series of meetings between NFF officials led by the President, Amaju Pinnick who confirmed the news at a press conference in Lagos.
“We want to celebrate and thank Aiteo,” Amaju Pinnick told Score Nigeria in Lagos during unveiling ceremony on Wednesday. The package will guarantee a monetary reward for the best performing teams with the winners of men’s version will bag N25million as prize money and N10million for the women’s event. The runner –up for the men’s competition will pocket N10million, with the runner –up for the women’s event going home with N5million. The NFF and AITEO will, in due course, unveil further details of all the benefits of the extended agreement at a press conference.
The country’s longest running competition had struggled for sponsorship since Coca-Cola pulled out as title sponsors several years ago.
FC Ifeanyiubah won last year’s competition and represented Nigeria in the 2017 CAF Confederation Cup.
The arrangement will see AITEO underwriting the costs of the organisation of the competition, which encompasses the costs of organising the competition from the Round of 64 to the men and women’s finals, solidarity support to Football Associations of the 36 States and the FCT, expenses and indemnities of match officials, support to participating Clubs, Media, Branding/Activation and Prize Money to winners.
The Cost Value Arrangement of the transaction is for NFF and AITEO to, annually, decide the nature and value proposition of the AITEO Cup under the framework of the relationship, and AITEO would thus underwrite the cost as the competition’s ‘Naming Right Holder.’
The NFF team at the contract signing inside AITEO Group’s Lagos office said it was “extremely delighted” by the extended agreement, while AITEO chieftains stated “we are happy to do this for Nigeria.”
