Nigeria's Super Falcons have gone on strike and are threatening to boycott Tuesday's final group match of the FIFA Women's World Cup following a row with officials over bonuses and allowances. Top players exclusively told KICK OFF that they were unhappy at what they described as the NFA's 'cheating' in unilaterally reducing their bonuses and have subsequently boycotted training since last weekend's 0-2 loss to North Korea. "We have not trained since our match against Korea," KICK OFF was told. "And we will not train until we see our money. And if we dont see the money before Tuesday, we will not play against USA." According to the players, their camping allowance was reduced from the previous flat rate of USD 100 per day to USD 30 for the training tour to Germany, and USD 75 per day for their stay in China. Match bonuses were also slashed drastically from the previous USD 3000 for winning bonus and half of that for a draw to USD 700 for a win and USD 400 for a draw. And players informed KICK OFF that they were threatened by NFA chairman Sani Lulu Abdullahi into accepting the new terms before departure from Nigeria. "Before we left, the chairman came to us and said that that is what they would pay us, and anybody who did not want it, should pack her bags and leave the camp! "Of course nobody said anything, but we knew where to get them, and the time is now. He thinks we are fools." In a bid to prevent the looming international embarrassment, NSC Director General Amos Adamu stepped in on Monday, with a long distance call to team leaders Maureen Mmadu and Christy George with a promise to find a solution to the problem. But the players insisted that without the money, and they are demanding for the full USD 100 camping allowance and USD 750 bonus for the Sweden draw before they so much as tie a bootlace. With the players digging their heels in, Adamu promised to ring back by 9am Nigerian time with news about the money, urging the players to return to training in order to be fit for the USA game. "We are fit as we are, after all we have been training continuously for some weeks now. But we will not do anything until we see our money." This is no idle threat. In 2004, the Super Falcons staged a similar sit-in protest in South Africa when the NFA failed to come up with their bonuses after they won the African Women Championships. For nearly two weeks, the players were holed up in their hotel until the NFA paid up. This will be the second time in a week that Sani Lulu's NFA will be looking down the barrel of a boycott threat from a national team over bonus issues. Just last weekend, Super Eagles players issued a threat that they will boycott nest year's African Nations Cup unless the NFA paid up their bonus for winning the qualifier against Lesotho. http://www.kickoffnigeria.com/stories/story8741.html
Sani Lulu Abdullahi sounds like he might be a protege of jack warner or something. dude must personally make millions from nigerian football nickel and diming people.
Nigeria is UTC+1 I think Eastern Standard Time is UTC-4 right now. That would make it 4AM on the East Coast or four hours before the scheduled kickoff.
If I'm calculating this correctly, Nigeria is 5 hours later than East Coast USA. So 9am in Nigeria is 4am EST. Just a couple of hours before kick off on Tuesday, which doesn't make a lot of sense, unless the article was posted yesterday rather than today... Anyone have any other info on this? The official FIFA website doesn't mention anything, of course.
I looked at the FIFA site before posting to make sure it wasn't a 5AM EST start. It is listed as a 20:00 start. China is 12 hours ahead of North America's EST. The decision will have to be made four hours before the scheduled kick.
Nothing like cutting it close. Especially if they decide to try to move up the start time for the games.
I hope that the USWNT players are in the dark about this. You want your team to prepare for the match without distractions.
No doubt! Even if they know, I bet Colleen Hacker is helping with tools for the team to deal with it mentally.
thats what i was thinking but this could serious bite NK or US in the ass depending on how things unfold. When it will likely come to GD, a 3+ for the US for merely waking up today could put NK in 2nd on default or worse, prevent the US from competing for more goals if NK puts up more than 3. Oh by the way, any word on the game time and the typhoon?
The NFA on Monday night averted a major embarrassment by bowing to the demands of striking Super Falcons players and paying them camp allowances of USD 100 each and match bonus of USD 750 for the draw against Sweden. Players embarked on the strike, refusing to train after their 0-2 loss to Korea and threatening to boycott Tuesday's clash against the USA unless they were paid. The players told KICK OFF that they were blackmailed by NFA chairman Sani Lulu Abdullahi into accepting drastically reduced camping allowances and match bonuses. Their daily allowance was cut from a flat rate of USD 100 daily to USD 30 for their one week training tour to Germany, and USD 75 for their stay in China. Their match bonus was slashed from the previous USD 3000 to USD 1500, meaning that for the draw against Sweden; they could only get USD 750 instead of USD 1500. "Before we left Nigeria, the chairman came to us and said that that is what they would pay us, and anybody who did not want it, should pack her bags and leave the camp," players told KICK OFF. But after the two-day stand-off in China, it was the NFA who blinked first, bowing to the demands of the players and paying them their due. http://www.kickoffnigeria.com/stories/story8745.html