By Andrew Warshaw
June 17 – A dispute over player bonuses that threatened Nigeria’s participation in the Confederations Cup still appears to be festering, with claims and counter-claims from players and officials.
Although the Super Eagles agreed to take part in the World Cup warm-up tournament in Brazil, they arrived well behind schedule with skipper Vincent Enyeama telling a media briefing the row had only been resolved ‘for now’ and would be revisited later.
The impasse with the Nigerian FA has overshadowed the African champions’ final preparations for the tournament where they meet Oceania minnows Tahiti in their opening match on Monday.
“I don’t really want to talk about this issue, it should not have gone into the press and I don’t want to elaborate on it much,” said Enyeama, who was sitting alongside coach Stephen Keshi. “It went on for the last four days and we don’t want to spend our energy on it now. It is over for now, it is settled for now, but after the championship we will revisit it.”
Nigeria’s players had reportedly been promised $10,000 for each win in the tournament and $5,000 for a draw, but the federation announced just before the team were due to fly to Brazil that it could not afford such a level of bonuses and would have to halve them. As a result the Nigerian squad refused to leave their hotel in Windhoek, Namibia, where they drew with Namibia in a World Cup qualifier last week, until the intervention of FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke.
But the Nigerian FA are clearly still at loggerheads with the players, insisting they had fully explained why they had to halve the bonuses . “We are shocked, like every Nigerian, at the attitude of the players,” Nigerian football federation general secretary Musa Amadu was quoted as saying.
“It is incomprehensible because the NFF president Aminu Maigari and myself sat down with the management of the Super Eagles, including coach Stephen Keshi, to explain why we had to slash the bonus and other measures taken as a result of our financial constraints.”