A week after the U-23 Eagles defeated Honduras to claim the bronze medal in the Rio 2016 Olympics, the players and officials are yet to receive their full allowances.
According to the Vanguard, Samson Siasia, head coach of the team made this revelation saying that they had yet to receive their full allowances. The Dream Team VI were paid a part of their allowances during the Games but only after the players threatened to stay away from training and boycott the Denmark game.
“They said no match bonuses when the Games began, but they didn’t tell us this before the tournament,” Samson said as quoted by FC Naija.
“Not one penny. It was when the players cried that they came with 11 days daily allowance and that was all they gave us. They then said they would pay us bonuses only when we got to the medal stages but up till now, we don’t even know how much for the Bronze we won,” Siasia continued.
The Nigerian team’s Bronze medal was the only medal won at the Rio Olympics and the players were boosted by the largesse of Japanese Billionaire Katsuya Takasu who gave the team $390,000 after hearing about their plight.
Siasia said the money was shared equally by all the players.