Nigeria: Bronze for The Price Of Gold!!!!!

Penultimate Friday is one that Sani Abdullahi Lulu, the president of the Nigeria Football Federation, will not forget in a hurry.

On that day, Lulu called a meeting of the executive board of the football federation to deliberate on the future of Nigeria's senior national team, the Super Eagles, and the team's technical crew.

Instead, board members moved a motion for his impeachment.

The members said they were unhappy with the below-expectation performance of the Super Eagles at the just concluded Angola 2010 Africa Cup of Nations. They were also unhappy with Lulu's decision to employ Shuaibu Amodu as the team's coach, when the panel that interviewed the coach scored him low.

Observers, however, believed most board members were unhappy with Lulu because they reasoned he had misappropriated their allowances. It took Lulu about seven hours to convince the members to give him till Tuesday to settle their allowances.

When the board met on Tuesday, Lulu proved to the board that his sobriquet "the winning president" was earned by paying the allowances. The payment won Lulu approval from board members. With their allowances paid, members moved to other issues they considered important.

They began debates on which members will travel with the team to watch friendly matches, inspect the team's camp in Durban, be at the 2010 World Cup, and go with the Falconets to South Africa for a World Cup qualifier match.

Here is a run down on some of the issues they debated.

Unnecessary inspections

The camp inspection is the third one conducted by the federation. Immediately after the World Cup draws, coach Amodu and the federation's technical committee chairperson, Taiwo Ogunjobi, inspected the camp.

When they took injured defender Yusuf Mohammed to South Africa, they went to inspect the camp again. Some board members led by President Lulu are in South Africa for another round of inspection.

Despite the inspection tours embarked upon by the board's members, the decision on where the Eagles will finally camp can only be made by the team's coach.

The federation is yet to hire a coach for the team and it is unclear what the board members will do if the new coach rejects the camp they are currently spending money on to inspect.

Counting the losses in Angola

After much money was spent in executing the Nations Cup project, football buffs believe a more serious board would have apologised to Nigerians for the failure in Angola. It cost the nation about a billion naira($10,000,000 dollars) to win a bronze.

Players and members of the team's technical crew got N460 million as allowances and winning bonuses. Each of the 23 players got $30,000 (about N4 million per player) for the three group matches against Egypt, Benin, and Mozambique.

If Ghana's federation was in charge of the Eagles, Nigerian players would have been paid only $20,000 for the two matches they won against Benin and Mozambique, instead of the $30,000 they were paid since they lost to Angola.

Shuaibu Amodu, got $60,000 (about N9 million) as bonus for the group games, while the three assistant coaches, Daniel Amokachi, Fatai Amao, and the goalkeeper trainer, Alloy Agu, got about $45,000. Other technical officials, including the team media officer, Peterside Idah got $24,000 each.

The curators got $15,000, half of the amount given to the players. For the win over Zambia in the quarterfinal, each player got $12,500; coach Amodu received $25,000, while his three assistants got $18,750. Other technical officials received $10,000 each, while the curators got $8,000.

Each player got $100 as daily allowance for the 25 days spent in Angola. Amodu got $200 as daily allowance while his three assistants got $150 each for the Nations Cup camping in Durban, South Africa. Over N110 million was spent on the team's players and their handlers.

Not enough

The federation had requested for N800 million for the Nations Cup assignment, but got N500 million. "The amount was inadequate considering the huge expenses we have to shoulder in paying the players' allowances and bonuses. If one kobo got missing from the players' bonuses, the news would have spread like the wild fire back home," a board member told reporters during the championship.

"So, it was more comfortable for us to owe the board members and secretariat staff of the NFF than to owe the players. But that does not mean that we will not pay the board members and the staff. We will do that as soon as we arrive Abuja."

The federation sent a staff to Nigeria to source for an additional N300 million. The Technical Committee's head, Ogunjobi, had revealed that the federation spent about $370,000 on hotel bills and $220,000 on feeding per day totalling $590,000 (about N88.5 million) "Angola is very expensive. We are spending about $370,000 on hotel accommodation and $220,000 on feeding every day here," he said.

Unknown expenses

The known sums do not include the travel allowances and other expenses of the Sports Minister, Sanni Ndanusa, who made two trips to Angola accompanied by aides. It also does not include the allowances of members of the federation's board and the Presidential Task Force for the 2010 World Cup.

Though the allowances are not known, the chartered plane used by Presidential Task Force to Angola was parked for nine days, costing the nation about N50 million.

Part of the Nations Cup budget was for miscellaneous expenses and "tactical." The overall expenditure shot over a billion. Football buffs say the amount is too high a price to pay for bronze when Egypt, who won the gold medal, spent less.