A member of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has explained the reasons behind the termination of the contracts of the technical crew of the Nigeria U17 team led by Nduka Ugbade.
Nigeria failed to make it to the U17 World Cup after falling to make the last four of the U17 Africa Cup of Nations following their 1-2 loss to Burkina Faso in the quarter final.
The failure appears to have a dire consequence on the future of the technical crew of the team, a move that is now unpopular especially with U23 and CHAN Eagles coach Salisu Yusuf, who failed to qualify two national teams still in his role as coach of the senior national team of Nigeria.
Explaining why their case is different from that of Yusuf, a chieftain of the NFF said only Salisu Yusuf has a written contract with the NFF for a particular period of time. He said every other coach is on a deal that extends after qualifying for any tournament.
He said they are not on salaries but on special bonuses which is tied to qualifying for tournaments, and failure to qualify for any tournament automatically brings the arrangement to an end.
” Their contracts is tied to qualifying for tournaments. That was what we inherited from the Amaju Pinnick led board. So when you make it to any tournament, you get qualifiers bonus. They are not even on match allowances. It’s the same with the U20 and U23 teams. So the moment you fail to make it to a tournament, the contracts terminates. The coaching crew are aware of this”, he told OGN.
Mohammed Mowiz
