by joe apu
Former Super Egales coach, Samason Siaisa has rubbished the claims by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), that there was an agreement between the players and the Glass House to peg the team’s home winning bonus at N1million.
According to African Football.com, a statement from the NFF spokesman Ademola Olajire, and Eagles team administrator, Dayo Enebi, had claimed that the officials as well as captain and vice-captain were at a meeting in March in Kaduna where it was agreed the players will be paid a million Naira each for a home win.
But Siasia has now rubbished such a claim.
“I don’t know anything about one million (Naira),” Siasia opened up when contacted on Thursday.
“The agreement was that they will pay the equivalent of dollars at the bank rate, official rate. I don’t know about anything else.”
He was further questioned – The agreement they had with you was they will pay with current bank rate and there was no time that the players will be paid a million Naira each for a home win?
“No, no, no,” he replied.
Several other officials equally denied any agreement that the players be paid a million Naira each for a Super Eagles home win.
They were to be paid $5,000 for a home win at the official Naira rate the time the match was played.
Further investigations revealed that at the time of the AFCON double-header qualifiers against Egypt, the official bank rate to the USD was around 200 Naira and that explained why they were paid 500,000 Naira each for the home draw with Egypt ($2500 x 200).
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Youth and Sports through Christian Ohaa, its permanent secretary said on Thursday that the allegations will be investigated.
“Based on the amount released to the NFF, nobody should shortchange the players again and I can tell you that we will look into it, I just got the report now and we will look into it,” Ohaa said.
AfricanFootball.com had reported on Wednesday, allegations by some Super Eagles players of being shortchanged on their win bonus for the 2018 World Cup qualifier against Algeria by the NFF.
Although, the NFF denied the allegations via a statement released also on Wednesday, claiming they had an agreement with the players to be paid a flat sum of a million Naira for home wins.