Wilfred Ndidi, the captain of the Super Eagles, has said that he promised his teammates and officials that he would pay their unpaid match bonuses at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco if the federal government doesn’t pay them before Saturday, when they will play Algeria in the quarter-finals.
Oluwashina Okeleji, a BBC journalist, cited Ndidi today as saying he made the promise because he didn’t want the lack of cash to get in the way of their plans.
“I’ve been telling the team to practice and play the game against Algeria.” Since the second game, I’ve been doing this. Ndidi told Okeleji in an X post, “I’ve now promised the staff and players that I will personally pay the bonuses if the authorities don’t do it by Saturday.”
“I don’t want these bonuses that haven’t been paid to get in the way of our plans.” He said, “I told the players and coaches that I would personally make the payments if they don’t get it.”
The federal government, through Doris Uzoka-Anite, the Office of the Minister of State for Finance, has promised to speed up the payments between today and tomorrow.
The Super Eagles’ camp was shaken by rumors that players and officials were planning to skip travel to Marrakech and training on Thursday since they hadn’t received their bonuses for their three group stage matches and the round of 16.
Uzoka-Anite gave an update on the administrative progress of the match bonuses on Thursday in response to the report. He said that the group stage funds had been released and had passed the necessary regulatory steps. He also said that future payments would no longer be affected by such delays.
“The federal government and the Central Bank of Nigeria have successfully streamlined the foreign exchange processing to ensure our players are rewarded without further delay,” the minister wrote on X.
“From now on, the procedure will be entirely streamlined to make sure that payments are made more quickly and consistently, in keeping with best practices around the world. All of the bonuses for the group stage have been fully issued and have now passed all of the required regulatory steps.
She went on to discuss the new way to make payments that will make it easier to discharge monies in the players’ preferred currency.
“We have set up a fast-track conversion process to move money into foreign currency, as the players wanted.” The last remittances to domiciliary accounts are now on their way. Starting today (Thursday) or tomorrow (Friday), players can expect to get these funds.
Ndidi and his teammates got to Marrakech on Thursday and trained again before their game against Algeria tomorrow, Saturday.
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