The main issue why the senior national team of Nigeria refused to train earlier on was due to a dispute over the denomination in which they will be paid after they were informed by the Nigeria Football Federation ( NFF) that they will be paid in Naira.
Owngoalnigeria.com exclusively gathered that the players kicked against the idea as due to the current exchange rate they will lose as much as N750,000 per payment if they are paid as planned by the NFF. They insist on getting paid in Dollars.
All attempt to convince them that there’s scarcity of dollars in Nigeria fell on deaf ears and the issued lingered on till the time for press conference which they shunned and also missed the training that was scheduled after the conference.
They later got their way as the NFF agreed to pay them in dollars but contrary to reports the bonus in question is the one for the game against Burundi and not a backlog of bonuses as claimed in some section of the press.
Prior to that, the players felt disrespected that the NFF didn’t get across to them to explain the delay in payment and only responded after their decision to shun training this morning. The only visit they got from the NFF was after the game against Burundi and president of the NFF Pinnick promised them that they will be paid the next day.
According to Pinnick, who is a board member of the Confederation of Africa Football ( CAF) , the participation money for the AFCON would be paid that Saturday and he will settle the player the next day but that didn’t happen and it further infuriated the players.
However as exclusively reported by Owngoalnigeria.com, the team finally agreed to train after captain of the team John Obi Mikel spoke with them and assured them that the payments will be completed on or before Friday.
