The Minister of Sports, Bolaji Abdullahi, has called for a code of conduct to guide the behaviour of players and officials of the Super Eagles during national assignments.
Abdullahi was reacting to the demands by the players for full match bonuses, after playing in Kenya and Namibia, before going for the Confederations Cup in Brazil.
Abdullahi, who spoke with reporters on Friday in Abuja, blamed the Nigerian Football Federation for its poor handling of the match bonus disagreement.
He said, “It’s is disappointing that this kind of thing is happening. What is happening is a challenge in the system when there is no code of conduct. Imagine a player who is playing for the national team to embark on such protest.
“When there is no code of conduct to guide the behaviour of players and officials, including the NFF itself, you see these kinds of things happening.
“The challenge that such imposes on us at our level is that we must immediately begin to work on a code of conduct that will ensure that when players and the officials are on national assignments, there should be a way they should behave.”
The Minister expressed disappointment that players and officials who have benefitted graciously from the Federal Government after their victory at the Africa Cup of Nations would resort to putting the country in a tight corner because of match bonuses.
He said, “On the issue of match bonus, Mr. President was gracious to have intervened. It shouldn’t have happened and the NFF ought to have handled it better; but the players too ought to have behaved better.
“These are players and officials who have benefited from Nigeria through the AFCON.”
“You don’t expect players who have benefitted like that to behave in such a manner over 50 per cent of their match bonuses.”
According to him, the Confederations Cup was a means of testing the team ahead of the World Cup.