Minister pays Keshi N14m

Minister of Sports Dr. Tammy Danagogo

okooooo......Super Eagles coach, Stephen Keshi, is smiling to the bank even as Nigerians, companies and members of the Nigeria Football Federation weep bitterly for missing the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations. The Minister of Sports, Tammy Danagogo, has paid Keshi N14m for the past two months, according to a report by Africanfootball.com.

It was learnt that the transaction was carried out without the knowledge of the board of the Nigeria Football Federation – a move experts say further undermines the authority of the NFF over the coach.

It was understood that Keshi was paid for October and November even though there is no contractual agreement between the coach and the NFF.

The Special Media Assistant to the sports minister, Patrick Omorodion, who confirmed the payment, however told The PUNCH that the money was not meant for Keshi alone.

“The money was not paid to only Keshi but it meant for the entire coaching crew. What was done by the ministry was just to fulfil an agreement earlier reached with the coaches. At the peak of the NFF crisis and with urgent matches to play, the minister stepped in and invited Keshi to handle those games after which it would be purely left for the NFF to retain him or ask another coach to take over.”

But the NFF officials say that the explanation cannot stand as the minister has quietly taken over their role which has ultimately made nonsense their position as the immediate employers of Keshi and to whom the coach should report to.

A member said, “The minister has been paying Keshi directly from the NFF subvention without any input from the NFF. This cannot be good for the relationship between employer and employee.”

Keshi was in charge for the Equatorial Guinea 2015 qualifiers double header against Sudan in October and then the qualifiers against Congo and South Africa last month. But he was sacked midway into the qualifiers when it became very doubtful if the country could qualify with him in charge. When he was asked to go, the NFF announced a former coach of the Eagles Shaibu Amodu to take charge of the team for the remaining two matches but they had to rescind their earlier decision after Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan asked that he should be restated. Even though most Nigerians have asked for a new coach, the NFF members have become helpless under the prevailing condition.

Even though the NFF president Amaju Pinnick has maintained a contract has not been agreed with Keshi, followers of the game in Nigeria see the N7m payment as acceding to Keshi’s demand that his pay be increased to that amount. The amount is N2m raise from what he received in his initial contract, which ran out after the World Cup in Brazil.