The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has said the $960,000 released by FIFA to it was meant for preparation for the World Cup and not to pay players’ salaries for qualifying matches.
President of the NFF, Ibrahim Gusau, while appearing before an ad-hoc committee of the House of Representatives investigating non-payment of allowances to members of the Super Falcon, said the federation used the money for camping of players and friendly matches.
He said FIFA’s auditors would have flagged it if NFF had used the money to pay allowances for qualifier matches.
“All the 32 nations that qualified for the World Cup were given $960,000 each for preparation for the World Cup.
“In January, we organized a training tournament of four nations Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica and Nigeria. Every team used FIFA preparation money. The team was camped in Mexico and they were there for 13 days. In March, they were in Turkey for another training camp.
“The money was not given for the welfare of players but for preparing the team. We paid them allowances as per the tournament they participated in. We cannot use the preparation money to pay outstanding of qualifier matches.
“If the auditors of FIFA should see it, they will query us for that. The money was specific. We cannot use the money for a qualifier that was played in 2019,” he said.
