Flamingos, Falconets smile to banks as NFF pays World Cup bonuses

Harry Awurumibe, Editor-in-Chief

In keeping with its policy of support for women’s football development in the country, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has paid the outstanding World Cup qualifying bonuses hitherto owed players and officials of the national U-17 and U-20 Women’s football team (Flamingos) and  (Falconets) respectively.

Sportsrevelation has exclusively gathered from those who should know at the NFF Sunday Dankaro House, Abuja that players and officials of Flamingos and Falconets class of 2016 and 2018 have been paid their outstanding bonuses.

Specifically, those who received the windfall are the Flamingos team to  2016 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Jordan and their counterparts in the Falconets team that qualified Nigeria for the 2018 FIFA U-20 Women’s  World Cup in France.

It was also gathered that U-17 women players got the sum of N500,000 for four-match qualification bonus at the sharing ratio of N125,000 per match while the Head Coach went home with N1 million per match.

However, each player of the Falconets team that qualified Nigeria for the 2018 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup final in France  got the sum of N504,000 for the six qualifier matches, earning the sum of N84, 000 per match.
In the same vein, U-20 Assistant Coaches and backroom staff including Team Secretary and Media Officer got the sum of N750, 000; curator N375, 000 and Head Coach received the sum N1 million.

Sportsrevelation can confirm that NFF Accounts Department has paid all the persons involved in the qualification bonuses even as it was also gathered that the federation has perfected plans to also pay one more outstanding bonus to the Falconets team to 2016 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup final in Papua New Guinea.

The team is being owed one World Cup match winning bonus which is captured in foreign currency hence the delay in processing the payment after the team crashed out in the first round.

However, NFF has magnanimously approved the money to be paid in the United States dollars whenever it is ready for disbursements.

Each player will smile home with the sum of $2,000; Assistant Coaches to earn $3,000 each; backroom staff including Team Secretary and Media Officer will get $3,000 and curator to receive $1,500 while the Head Coach will cart home $4,000 respectively.