By Monica Iheakam

Fortune is about to smile on Enyimba International Football Club of Aba,  courtesy of their recent signing of Super Eagles goalkeeper Ikechukwu Ezenwa from FC Ifeanyi Ubah.

The Peoples Elephant , is expected to rake in over N80 million once the 2018 FIFA World Cup gets underway in Russia by June.

The windfall coming the way of the two time African Champions, is thanks to the world football ruling body’s over $209 million  largesse earmarked for clubs .

According to FIFA,football clubs who supply squad members to the next year’s mundial, can look forward to a massively increased payment of over $ 8,000 per player per day.

Should Ezenwa make the Super Eagles train to Russia, Enyimba is guaranteed to share in the booty from FIFA as compensation for releasing their players to represent their national teams at the 2018 World Cup.

As the only home based player in the Gernot Rohr team, Ezenwa who is also the captain of CHAN Eagles, will benefit from participating in Russia.

Starting from June 1, 2018, which is two weeks before the opening match between host Russia and Saudi Arabia, the payment clock will start ticking for Enyimba and will stop the day after Super Eagles’ elimination from the tournament.

In 2014, Bayern Munich ,the leading Club in world champions Germany’s squad , were the highest recipient earning $1,734,367 ahead of Spain’s Real Madrid who got over $40,000 for coming second at the championship  hosted by Brazil. A total of 736 players will play at the world cup in Russia.

… As Egypt leads Africa’s tickets requests

After Egypt qualified for the FIFA World Cup for the first time in 28 years, its fans are among the top nations 10 in the world requesting tickets for Russia 2018, reported FIFA on Wednesday.

“Fans from Argentina, Peru, Mexico, USA, Colombia, Brazil, Morocco, Egypt, China and Poland all currently rank in top ten,” the FIFA statement read.

Within the first 24 hours, fans from all over the world requested a gargantuan figure totaling 1,318,109 tickets, as the random-selection sales draw goes on until 31 January 2018.

Currently, the highest number of applications have come from the host country, Russia, while international demand accounts for 34 percent.

As per FIFA’s rules, fans are able to apply for individual match tickets for all matches except for the opening and final match, as well as venue-specific tickets and supporter tickets.

“In the event that the number of tickets requested exceeds the available inventory, allocation will be based on a random-selection draw procedure,” FIFA stated.

Egypt and the rest of the competing teams’ group stage draw took place during a ceremony at the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow last Friday. The pharaohs were drawn in Group A, where they will face World Cup semi-finalists Uruguay in their opening group stage match, at the Ekaterinburg Arena on June 15, 2 pm CLT.

Four days after playing Uruguay, Egypt will take on the hosts, Russia, at Saint Petersburg Stadium at 8pm CLT.

Finally, Egypt will stand against Saudi Arabia at the Volgograd Stadium on June 25, at 4 pm CLT.