FALCONETS SEND SOS MESSAGES TO PRESIDENT BUHARI, NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

FALCONETS SEND SOS MESSAGES TO PRESIDENT BUHARI, NATIONAL ASSEMBLY .....leave table tennis alone, come and fight for us; Under 20 girls beg Omidiran By Niyi Busari Former deputy chairman house committee on Sports who is incidentally, is a member of the same committee in the lower chamber, Alhaja Ayo Omidiran, earlier in the week, led a protest, contesting the none inclusion of women table tennis players by the sports ministry, in the Nigerian contingent to the Commonwealth Games. Unfortunately and unknowingly to the current chairperson of the women's football development committee, there is even bigger crisis awaiting are, in a sport she has laboured so hard to uphold and uplift. If news filtering out of the Falconets camp are anything to go by, then Alhaja Ayo Omidiran may have to print more placards with even more appealing and attractive messages to get the NFF to act fast because things are falling apart in the world cup bound team and the center, can no longer hold. Inside sources from the team's camp, have reported with bitterness, the ill-treatment, metted out to the Nigeria Under 20 women's team as against their male counterparts. 'We have been treated like slaves' from the very beginning a top official of the team who spoke on condition of anonimity, said. " What else do they want from us. We have qualified Nigeria for the world cup yet all the coaches attached to the team have not been paid their salaries since we started this journey late last year. As if that is not enough, our winning bonuses of 1500 US Dollars per match, was drastically cut down to 250 USD and till date, we have not received the balance. Why? Someone should please help us ask why? We started this job without any formal contract agreement and as we speak, we don't know what the future holds for us, coaches of the National team. . Below, is a breakdown of all we are entitled to get throughout the qualifiers. THREE HOME WINS.... 2.4M NAIRA TO THE CHIEF COACH. THAT IS 800,000 NAIRA FOR EACH HOME WIN. 1.8M NAIRA TO EACH OF HIS ASSISTANT COACHES FOR THE THREE HOME WINS 1.2M NAIRA TO EACH OF THE PLAYERS FOR THE THREE HOME WINS 9000 USD TO THE CHIEF COACH... FOR TWO AWAY WINS AND ONE DRAW 7,500 USD TO EACH OF HIS ASSISTANTS FOR TWO WIN AND ONE AWAY DRAW. 5,500 USD TO EACH PLAYER FOR TWO WINS AND ONE DRAW AWAY FROM HOME. From these breakdown, all we got till date is a meagre 675 USD instead of 4500 USD as DTA for the away victories. Remember DTA's are monies paid to officials as appearance and inconveniency allowance for every match played during the qualifiers. This has nothing to do with the match bonuses and as you know, each official is entitled to 1500 dollars per away match and the naira equivalent of that amount for the home games confirmed our source. We are compelled at this point to cry out. We have been totally marginalised. We have been treated as second class citizens in a country we have given so much to please. We cannot take this any longer. This is bad and unfair. As coaches, we don't even have a contract, we don't know how much we are to get as salaries monthly and we have delivered on our mandate which is qualifying Nigeria for the world cup. We want to use this platform to inform Nigerians of our plight as we are gradually dying in silence. This is also an SOS message to president Mohammadu Buhari, to all the good people of the National Assembly especially the house and senate committees on sports. We are appealing to our mother, Ayo Omidiran to return to her first constituency, football. She was with us through the qualifiers and saw how patriotic and dedicated we were, this is the time to fight for us ma'. These are not my words but that of a club official crying from the wilderness of uncertainty. As a reminder, let's also state in clear terms that the present NFF board are yet to offset outstanding bonuses and allowances of the 2016 Flying Eagles, Flamingos, Golden Eaglets and Super Falcons teams. NFF president Amaju Pinnick says his board is hoping to offset all these debts in April when the first batch of the FIFA windfall will drop. Where do we go from here?