Romanus Ugwu, St Petersburg
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has revealed that it will pay the Super Eagles players their full group stage bonus to motivate them to qualify to the next stage of the tournament despite losing against Croatia.
The loss against Croatia would have been reduction in the winning bonus given to the players but the football federation had insisted that regardless of the manners the team picked the ticket to the round of 16, they will get their full group stage bonus entitlement.
Federation’s first Vice President, Seyi Akinwunmi who made the disclosure at St Petersburg yesterday, dismissed the insinuations that the federation queried the Eagles technical adviser, Gernot Rohr over the loss to Croatia in the opening encounter.
Reacting to the report that the federation has increased the Eagles bonus to $5000 for the Friday match against Iceland, Akinwumni said: “What we decided after the match is to give the boys more impetus is that they will receive their full entitlements once we qualify.
“They will get their full qualifying bonus if we go through as if they did not loss any match. They have better incentives now provided they win their two next matches and qualify.
“If they qualify with one win and draw or however means, they will get their full entitlement bonus once they qualify. We feel that the players will be motivated by that,” he said.
On the speculated query to Rohr, he said: The football federation is solidly behind its coach and here were discussions shortly after the match as usual but nobody has queried the coach.
“We have full confidence in him and we strongly believe he will qualify us to the next round the same way he qualified us to get here in the first place.