SPORT Rufai canvasses more time for Eagles’ goalkeepers
NSuper Eagles ex-goalkeeper, Peter Rufai, yesterday rose to the defence of the team’s goalkeepers, saying they need more playing time to gain experience. Rufai made the submission in an interview in Lagos while assessing the performance of igeria’s Home-based Super Eagles, placed second at the just-concluded African Nations Championship (CHAN) in Morocco will earn the sum of $400,000 and not $750,000, as the Confederation of African Football (CAF) officially released the cash entitlements of all teams that participated at the Championship.
Official figures have now shown that hosts and champions Morocco will pocket the sum of $750,000, with silver medalists Nigeria to earn $400,000 and semi finalists Sudan (eventual bronze medalists) and Libya to pocket the sum of $250,000 each.
The four teams that crashed out at the quarter final stage, viz Namibia, Zambia, Angola and Congo will each be $175,000 richer, while the third placed teams in each of the four preliminary groups will get $125,000 each.
The fourth-placed teams in each of the four groups will smile to the bank with $100,000.
“CAF has spread the monies in such a way that each of the 16 participating teams at the finals would benefit. No team has received its share yet, but once the finance and audit people conclude their work in a number of weeks, the teams would be paid,” NFF President Amaju Pinnick, a Member of both the CAF Executive Committee and the CAF Emergency Committee, told thenff.com on Wednesday.
This means Super Eagles’ players and officials, who have been promised 30 per cent of the bonus by the Nigeria Football Federation, will be smiling to the bank in a few weeks’ time. the Nigerian goalkeepers readiness for the World Cup.
The veteran goalkeeper said goalkeeping unlike other department in football needed more playing time and could not be assessed or judged by a single match.
“There is no problem as far as I am concerned with the goalkeeping department of the in Super Eagles, what they need right now is support and more exposure.
“Goalkeepers get better with time and matches and if one is not performing well such can be replaced for a better option. We are blessed with abundance of good goalkeepers in Nigeria.
“If someone is driving a four wheel vehicle and one wheel is not good enough, then you change the one that is bad and not discarding all the wheels that is the same situation with goalkeepers.
“The goalkeepers we still have can serve us better, so, we need not panic about the goalkeepers. As I have said the goalkeepers need exposure, and playing time to get better,” he said. (NAN)