NFF scraps match bonus for Eaglets, other age-grade teams

The Nigeria Football Federation has dashed the financial hopes of six arms of the national teams following a resolution that players and officials of agegrade National Teams will be paid only qualification bonus.

This was one of the decisions taken by the Executive Committee at the board meeting held in Asaba on Tuesday.

With this resolution, the U-17, U-20, U-23 male and female national teams will no longer enjoy benefits such as match bonus as well as camp allowances.

The communiqué conveying the decision reads “Board re-in-forced an earlier resolution that youth competitions are developmental, and that only qualification bonus would be paid to players and officials of age -grade National Teams.

“In addition, the Board resolved to closely monitor the age -grade National Teams (U15, U17 & U20) in order to ensure that the coaches follow the Board’s mandate to have players graduating from the NFF/Zenith Bank Future Eagles Program, and in that wise resolved to closely monitor the current U20 squad.”

It will be recalled that in August this year, the Federal government had approved the payment of all camp allowances and match bonuses accruing to the National U-20 Women’s team, the Falconets as stated by the Sports Minister, Barr Solomon Dalung.