RUSSIA 2018 WORLD CUP (59 DAYS TO GO): FG’s N2.5b for Eagles not ready

.CAF’s cash used to prosecute Nigeria’s side’s friendly games

.Glasshouse’s last subvention of N72m was in July 2017

.Minister’s March 31 deadline lapses

With less than 59 days to Nigeria’s first Russia 2018 World Cup game against Croatia on June 16, not a dime out of the estimated N2.5 billion promised the Super Eagles’ players and coaches by the Federal Government has been released, Sportinglife.ng can reveal today exclusively.

Sportinglife can report exclusively that the Sports Minister Solomon Dalung had in December 2017 vowed that by the middle of March 2018, all monetary requirments by the team’s coaches and players would be with the Sports Ministry for disbursement.

The minister, however, stated that he wouldn’t start the disbursement unless that NFF chiefs show him what they have raised for the team’s stay in Russia during the Mundial.

Sportinglife’s checks showed that the international firnedly games involving the team till date were prosecuted from the country’s earnings from the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF), which the minister captured as one of the sources of cash by the Glashouse chiefs, when he spoke at a press conference in Lagos in December last year.

Further investigations by Sportinglife.ng showed that the NFF last got its subvention from the Federal Government in July 2017 amounting to N72 million.

But when Sportinglife.ng sought NFF’s Presidnet Amaju Pinnick’s comments on the development, he said: ” The minister and I are doing everything possible to ensure a hitch-free participation for the Eagles. In fact, the minister has been fantastic in his drive for cash from the government. On NFF’s part, we have embarked on a massive sponsorship drive and I must commend those firms that have contributed something to the body’s coffers, despite the global recession. No cause for alarm.”