Nigeria sports minister, Solomon Dalung has put an estimate of N3 Billion for the Super Eagles to successfully execute the 2018 World Cup competition in Russia.
“We have a conservative budget of about N3 billion but out of that N3 billion, FIFA is going to raise about N900 million, our sponsors and partners are also going to put about N600 million. Government will conservatively raise about N2 billion or N2.5 billion to compliment.”
The minister, who answered reporters’ questions at the Aso Villa, Abuja, said that his ministry intends to mobilize a very strong federal government delegation that will support the team because sports is also about number.
“The number of people you have on ground can also give support to the players and intimidate. So, we intend to go with at least a good size of the federal government delegation to give the team support.
“We intend to make it more inclusive so that Nigerians will participate in this particular victory which Nigeria is going to have.”
Dalung said that a number issues militating against performance of the Nigerian team in the past have been identified and will be addressed before the World Cup competition begins.
According to him, one of such challenges is the welfare of the players and the officiating team, adding that his ministry would set a new approach to the question of welfare.
“By March next year, we intend to start paying the players their allowances, camping allowances upfront. Now, that will go a long way to boost the morale of the players and confidence too. The new method of governance in football has taken the pattern of change. We will also ensure that there is unity within the football family.
“Because unity too is a key factor going by some of the reports we had in the past where poor performances were attributable to lack of unity between the family, the technical team, the officials and the players. This unity has to be promoted.
“Finally, we will also ensure that government makes funds available on time. That has been why the budget for the competition has since been sent to the President for a special intervention so that government can make provision for some of the funds we need for training now before other things can come up.” [myad]
