₦airaland Forum

daveP:
Make they add Zidane and Idoko join for Midfield, it won't be a bad idea for Moshood too.

GeneralDae:
Mercy Idoko of course. There’s also an attacking midfield youngster in the NWFL making waves. Can’t pin down her name now (I think it’s Okechuckwu) . I think she played in the last U20 World Cup for the super falconets.

lovewins:
Just in:

President Bola Tinubu has announced a cash reward of $100,000 to each Super Falcons player who represented Nigeria at the just concluded 2025 WAFCON tournament in Morocco.

In addition, each player will also get a three-bedroom apartment at the Renewed Hope Housing estate in Abuja, and they will also be conferred with National Awards, receiving an OON (Order of the Officer of the Niger).

This figure seems outrageous but if true I'm very happy for the girls. I however think focus should be on development and not gestures like these that ultimately adds nothing to our growth.

lovewins:
Just in:

President Bola Tinubu has announced a cash reward of $100,000 to each Super Falcons player who represented Nigeria at the just concluded 2025 WAFCON tournament in Morocco.

In addition, each player will also get a three-bedroom apartment at the Renewed Hope Housing estate in Abuja, and they will also be conferred with National Awards, receiving an OON (Order of the Officer of the Niger).

This figure seems outrageous but if true I'm very happy for the girls. I however think focus should be on development and not gestures like these that ultimately adds nothing to our growth.

GeneralDae:
True. I think focus should be on the development of the women’s league. But anyhow, I am happy for the super falcons ( my second favourite Nigerian team after the Dtigress)

lovewins:
Just in:

President Bola Tinubu has announced a cash reward of $100,000 to each Super Falcons player who represented Nigeria at the just concluded 2025 WAFCON tournament in Morocco.

In addition, each player will also get a three-bedroom apartment at the Renewed Hope Housing estate in Abuja, and they will also be conferred with National Awards, receiving an OON (Order of the Officer of the Niger).

This figure seems outrageous but if true I'm very happy for the girls. I however think focus should be on development and not gestures like these that ultimately adds nothing to our growth.

BankyGee:
She and toekneepain 😂

mostob:


Be warn o
Tony is not an introvert

Jieta2:
I though you posted this on the super Eagles thread you still brought it here. So you want ten to twenty years time you be hearing I played for the super falcon now am ill government don't want to support me, I don't even have place to stay. It seems like you are a failed student of history.

Truidstarr:
My brother I don't know what is outrageous about this. They deserve every penny. When Buhari was president and Solomon Dalung was Sports minister, recall the international embarrassment of the Super Falcons after winning the trophy; carrying placards in protest over unpaid allowances. This gesture is an inspiration to young girls who want to follow in their footsteps. This is commendable from this administration.

lovewins:
Baba, you'll notice I said I was happy for the girls, but this is about how we steward public funds and in my opinion this isn't the way to go. Yes the girls deserve to be commended but this isn't sustainable. Let me break it down.

The president just gave the entire crew about $3 Million Dollars. For context, that's

3 times the WAFCON prize money
3x what they got at the last FIFA world cup after tax
3 years salary for an average female footballer player.

If they have that kind of funds to give, how to help the super falcons will be to put that money in a trust exclusively for the Falcons managed by a team of a neutral committee of heroes high net worth women absent the NFF. That initial fund can change the phase of female footbal in this country for a long time. If you put $3M in a low yield low risk investment of say 10% a year, that's $300k (which is the amount the ladies will get from their CAF winnings) in returns yearly that is enough to handle issues of bonuses and allowances. $300k means you can easily gift winners of future WAFCON a $10k prize money without issues. The only thing the NFF will likely need to take care of will be logistics.

Now imagine it's a $10M fund, that sets women's football apart for generations to come. That's how to think future and development while also being appreciative of the present. Sadly we are a money driven society and just throw money at every problem and then get suprised when they repeatedly happen again.

CC: Goke7

GeneralDae:
Very easy to understand, you wrote exactly my mind. We don’t always think sustainably. Always so fixated on the moment.
The league is nothing to write home about compared to that of the Moroccans and is in need of funds. The super falcons would likely win many more of these trophies in the future as well. This would then be used as a benchmark.

AkinDS:
And what exactly is your Zidane going to do? She would be clearly out of her league, as she does not have a defensive bone in her body. Ditto that for Moshood. Idoko is not half as good as Favour Emmanuel who should be the one to complement the current midfield. The SF needs players with the best lungs, who are pacy and can offer value upfront and in defense.
Neither of the players you mentioned offer this.

lovewins:
This sadly can't be done in perpetuity. It's just not sustainable, particularly for a country struggling to fund critical aspects of government. D'tigress are in Ivory coast now, will they also get $100k when they win cause they've won the competition back to back 4 times and this will be the 5th if they win. They've also been treated very terribly by the Nigerian state.

Like you said, people don't think long term. I'm very happy for the girls though, na them cash out, but pretty sure this won't continue.

JohnBullMySon:
Although I've had disagreements with you in the past. I really like that you try to think intelligently and apply good synthesis every time.

When I saw that gift from Tinubu, similar stuff crossed my mind but wouldn't even write it here, cause I'm sure many people will misunderstand it to think I don't want them to receive money. You're absolutely right in saying that it's not sustainable. Money like this should be coming from an established system prior, and not from the whims of a happy president.

In fact, any country whose president spends public funds like this, is most likely a third world country. But that's outside the scope of this thread.

lovewins:
Well, going for tournaments is still the most rewarding venture for female footballers. So if a player has relationships to leverage on this is when they use it. An average player in Europe earns $20-30k per year salary, but you can get that in one 3 week tournament in Nigeria.

For context, the Nigerian players have a deal with the federation to get 30% of total prize winnings. If the falcons come out on top today the players will have a $300k prize money to share amongst themselves. This doesn't include bonuses they'll get plus other financial incentive they'll get from the government (federal and state) upon their return. It is also why certain persons at the federation try to insist on the inclusion of homebase players however undeserving that is cause rumours are they have back deals with some of these players to share their bonuses with them.

Please note that I do not necessarily think the bolded part applies this time though, just giving larger context as per why you see some people make the team when it doesn't make sense.

JohnBullMySon:
Although I've had disagreements with you in the past. I really like that you try to think intelligently and apply good synthesis every time.

When I saw that gift from Tinubu, similar stuff crossed my mind but wouldn't even write it here, cause I'm sure many people will misunderstand it to think I don't want them to receive money. You're absolutely right in saying that it's not sustainable. Money like this should be coming from an established system prior, and not from the whims of a happy president.

In fact, any country whose president spends public funds like this, is most likely a third world country. But that's outside the scope of this thread.

isan:
Tony wey dey dance for tiktok

mostob:
No mind Banky

naptu2:
OBASANJO REFORMS

This ridiculous idea that "Government must. . ." and "Government should. . ." is so widespread in Nigeria and it is so deeply embedded in the minds of Nigerians that even the most obvious and simplest reforms are met with resistance. That's what happened to Olusegun Obasanjo.

Sports

President Olusegun Obasanjo rightly decided that the Federal Government should not give large sums of money or gifts like cars, etc to sportsmen and women who win competitions.

There has been a tradition that the Federal Government would give large sums of money to sportsmen and women that have done well in competitions like the FIFA World Cup (men and women, senior and junior), the Olympic Games and the Athletics World Championships. My first memory of this is the gifts that were given to the 1980 Nations Cup winning side (Volkswagen Beetles, houses at Festac Town and sums of money). President Obasanjo decided that he would not follow that tradition.

Instead of cash gifts, President Obasanjo rewarded athletes with a presidential handshake. Nigerians went crazy. They criticised Obasanjo, said that athletes needed to be paid and they said that President Obasanjo had provided a justification for Nigerian athletes that chose to represent other countries. Can you imagine that??

It's not as if the athletes did not get any reward. For example, I watched one of those reception ceremonies in the early 2000s and President Obasanjo told the athletes that he had no money or land to give them, all he could give was a handshake, but that there were other people in the hall that could give them money and land. Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Dr Mike Adenuga Jr, Mr Femi Otedola and others were in the hall and they made cash donations to the team and Mallam Nasir El-Rufai (the then minister of the FCT) was also in the hall and he promised them land in Abuja. The issue was that the Federal Government was not going to give the athletes any cash.

I wrote about this in part of my 2006 NFA post. (I also created a thread with that post in 2011 and it was the first of my posts that the anti-spam bot attacked. I recreated it in 2012). I will quote from that post below:

a)Sports development:

Government has no business funding, or running professional sports; rather the government should build gymnasia, lay quality football pitches and athletics tracks provide qualified coaches and instructors and provide modern sports equipment in primary and secondary schools. Indeed the government could use the national stadia at Abuja & Lagos, Liberty, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello stadia as sports academies for school children (where the best talent from surrounding schools can be exposed to the best instructors and equipment), in the mould of the National Sports Institute in Australia & the Centre for sports science in France, rather than allowing them to lie fallow. Professional sports can attract sponsors to fund them; it’s not that easy for school sports to attract sponsors (‘cos no stars), so the government should fund them.

Imagine the U.K government paying David Beckham match allowances and “winning bonus”. Just imagine the uproar in the British Newspapers. When there are schools and hospitals to build and equip etc, the government is spending taxpayers money to pay one millionaire footballer! Money that can save lives! In Germany sponsors provide money for such allowances and get publicity in return. The exact amount is agreed well in advance and, of course, the F.A renders account to the sponsors. The sponsors don’t want bad publicity so they provide the agreed amount. The players are also satisfied because they know they are getting what they’ve agreed to. In Nigeria the players are usually discontented, because they know that the officials usually steal money that has been allocated by government for allowances. The officials don’t have to render account to anybody because this is government’s money and therefore everybody’s/nobody’s money. This is the source of indiscipline, as the players believe that they do all the work, while the officials steal the money.

Government spends a lot of money training lawyers at the law school, training doctors etc and therefore the government should spend money to develop the next generation of football stars who would be independent and give back to the community, just as Kanu is giving back with his heart foundation.

Team Nigeria

President Obasanjo did not stop at the presidential handshake. His administration also created Team Nigeria.

Team Nigeria was a structure that the administration used to mobilise funds from the corporate world for our sportsmen and women. It held fund raising dinners before major competitions and got businessmen and women to donate towards the success of the athletes. It also ensured that some of the companies made some of the athletes their brand ambassadors. The athletes got training grants from the companies and the companies got publicity from the athletes.

Dangote, Adenuga, Otedola, the banks, the Stock Exchange (Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke), etc were all involved in the Team Nigeria project.

National Lottery

In order to secure long term funding for sports, the administration launched the National Lottery. Profit from the lottery was meant to be used to upgrade sports facilities, to provide training grants for athletes and to fund Nigeria's participation in major sports competitions (a similar thing is done in the UK. Funds from the National Lottery is sometimes used for specific sporting needs, for example, some of that money was given to the Football Association to fund the construction of the new Wembley in exchange for certain promises to the government).


All these ideas died after Obasanjo left office.

lovewins:
Just in:

President Bola Tinubu has announced a cash reward of $100,000 to each Super Falcons player who represented Nigeria at the just concluded 2025 WAFCON tournament in Morocco.

In addition, each player will also get a three-bedroom apartment at the Renewed Hope Housing estate in Abuja, and they will also be conferred with National Awards, receiving an OON (Order of the Officer of the Niger).

This figure seems outrageous but if true I'm very happy for the girls. I however think focus should be on development and not gestures like these that ultimately adds nothing to our growth.

Truidstarr:
My brother I don't know what is outrageous about this. They deserve every penny. When Buhari was president and Solomon Dalung was Sports minister, recall the international embarrassment of the Super Falcons after winning the trophy; carrying placards in protest over unpaid allowances. This gesture is an inspiration to young girls who want to follow in their footsteps. This is commendable from this administration.

opes:
This is the first time the Falcons have ever been rewarded for winning the WAFCON, and it comes after their 10th title.