Super eagles to receive Allowance upfront

The Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung, said on
Tuesday that Super Eagles players would be given
all encouragement to excel at next year’s FIFA
World Cup in Russia.
He said the team’s allowances would be paid
upfront from March next year.
Dalung put the team expenses at N3 billion.
The minister spoke with State House
correspondents after meeting with President
Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa,
Abuja.
He said: “By March, we intend to start paying the
players their allowances and camping allowances
upfront. Now, that will go a long way to boost the
morale of the players and confidence too. The
new method of governance in football has taken
the pattern of change. We will also ensure that
there is unity within the football family.
“Because unity too is a key factor going by some
of the reports we had in the past where poor
performances were attributable to lack of unity
between the family, the technical team, the
officials and the players. This unity has to be
promoted.
“Finally, we will also ensure that government
makes funds available on time. That has been
the reason the budget for the competition has
since been sent to the President for a special
intervention so that government can make
provision for some of the funds we need for
training now before other things can come up.”
“Well we have a conservative budget of about N3
billion but out of that N3 billion, FIFA is going to
raise about N900 million. Our sponsors and
partners are also going to put about N600 million,
government will conservatively raise about N2
billion or N2.5 billion to compliment.
“This time, we also intend to mobilize a very
strong federal government delegation that will
support the team because game of sports is also
about number. The number of people you have on
ground can also give support to the players and
intimidate the opponents. So, we intend to go
with at least a good size of the federal
government delegation to give the team support.”