President of the Nigeria Football Federation, Amaju Pinnick, says some national teams would be scrapped as a result of financial crisis occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to him, among the plans to stay afloat will be the cutting off of the Beach and Futsal national teams as well as the reduction of spending or the scrapping of youth national teams.
During a Zoom video call with journalists on Monday, Pinnick said that the NFF was struggling to meet many of its financial responsibilities and will need to take important steps to reduce the burden by focusing on the senior national teams, the Super Eagles and the Super Falcons.
With Nigeria’s economy reeling from the global lockdown, Mr Pinnick told journalists that the NFF would have to operate a tighter ship in order to keep afloat. His aim for a 100 per cent fully independent NFF has taken a hard hit, but he is hopeful that things will return to some normalcy when the economy stabilizes post-COVID-19.
“Things are difficult,” Pinnick said, in response to a question on achieving financial independence for the NFF in a post-COVID-19 world. “We are trying to consolidate on our existing relationships with our sponsors (who are also struggling financially due to the Coronavirus),” legit.ng quoted him as saying.
The NFF’s biggest sponsors are oil servicing company Aiteo, the Nigeria Breweries, Coca-Cola, among others. All industries that have seen earnings decimated by the global lockdown.
The NFF re-hired German trainer, Gernot Rohr, last month with new terms that will see him paid in Naira due to the challenges of securing dollar payments.
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