The Edo State government have announced equal pay for both male and female football clubs in the state.
The announcement closes the the pay gap between its state-owned clubs in the Nigeria Women's Premier League (NWPL) and the Nigeria National League (NNL) ahead of the 2019/2020 season.

The information was disclosed on Tuesday by the deputy governor of the state, Philip Shaibu ahead of the state teams' rebranding and logo presentation billed to be held on Wednesday in Benin.

With this latest development, the state's female football clubs, the Edo Queens will become the highest paid female team in Nigeria.

According to Shaibu; "What we intend to do as instructed by Governor Godwin Obaseki is to ensure that there is no discrimination between the male and female teams,"

“Insurance’s standard and that of Queens are going to be the same. There will be no gender discrimination among them in terms of welfare, in terms of salary.

“At the end of the day, we will discover that Queens will be the highest-paid female team in Nigeria. That is what we want to achieve.” he also added.

Recall that the Queens narrowly missed out on the NWPL Super Four final last season, while Bendel Insurance were relegated from the top flight.

The former federal legislator attributed the impressive performance of the women's team for the approval.

“We are putting teams on the same scale. The men team had not been able to get to the Federation Cup semi-final for over 12 years but Queens had been in the semi-final for the past four years," he added.

“Why do we now pay Bendel Insurance more than them? Is it because they are girls? So, we decided that we have to upgrade them to the same level.”

Source: Female Football: Edo State Government Approves Equal Wages For Male, Female Clubs.