The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) is $500,000 richer courtesy of world football governing body, FIFA which shared the money out as extra bonus from the money made at last year’s World Cup finals in Brazil.
The bonus, which was announced at its Congress in Zurich, where Sepp Blatter was elected for a fifth term, totals $104.5 million and was given to all the 209 federations affiliated to FIFA.
It is different from the various sums given to the 32 teams that actually qualified and took part in the World Cup proper.
The bonus, which was disclosed by a Sky News reporter covering the Congress in Switzerland, was mentioned as one of the reasons why despite the corruption scandal currently rocking the football body, Blatter still went ahead to secure majority of votes.
According to the reporter, although the bonus ($.5m) “means nothing to countries like England or Germany, if you are from Sri Lanka then it means something.”
For a long time many of the countries in the West have insisted that Blatter is able to survive all these scandals because of the financial windfall he splashes on countries in Africa and Asia, which are not as financially sound as those in Europe and North America.
Incidentally, even before Friday’s voting, Amaju Pinnick, the Nigerian football boss, had told the BBC that he was very confident that Blatter would be returned as president despite the corruption scandal rocking FIFA.
Even CAF President, Issah Hayatou had never hidden his support for the Swiss and told the media that his Confederation wanted Friday’s voting to go ahead even though UEFA had pushed for a six-month postponement.
As it is, Blatter, who will be 84 when his tenure ends, would have been the longest serving president of FIFA.
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