The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) has insisted that the gains it recorded from the Senegal international friendly, as well the team’s training session at the Hive stadium was worth far more than the $500,000 spent.
The General Secretary of the NFF, Mohammed Sanusi stated this while addressing the media during the weekend.
Sanusi noted that the federation had no regret for what it spent insisting that it was determined to give the Super Eagles the best of preparations ahead of the crucial Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying match against African champions, Cameroon and the Cameroon 2019 AFCON qualifier against South Africa.
He said: “Let me emphasise that the essence of organising the match is not because of the naira and kobo. Otherwise we would not have spent money to do the things we did.
“We are concerned about the quality preparations and as far as I am concerned we have achieved the objective of playing the friendly match.
“I maintain that whatever we spent for that match was worthwhile otherwise inquire from other countries how much they spent for such friendly.
“Preparing a team is not an easy task. We cannot be talking of money without actually considering the logistic for that match.
“You have to consider the accommodation, feeding, transportation, security, hiring of stadium among others. I am sure that if you do a small calculation especially the room rates and number of players invited, you will see that a very big amount was involved,” he said.
It could be recalled that the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Solomon Dalung demanded for explanations from the NFF on the reported $500,000 that was allegedly spent by the Federation on the Super Eagles friendly match against Senegal last week in London.
Dalung also queried the NFF over what it described as over spending for the friendly games, insisting that the federation expended all the money it would have used to settle other crucial challenges on only one friendly match against Senegal in London.
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