As the Super Eagles prepare to battle South Africa tonight at the restart of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, controversial questions have erupted over the team’s prize money for emerging second at this year’s Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast.
While the winners’ prize for the competition dubbed AFCON 2023 shot up to $7m for the first time ever, the runners-up were to get $4m, and $2.5m was earmarked for third-placed.
Incidentally, Nigeria’s opponent in Friday’s potentially explosive World Cup qualifier, Banana Bafana of South Africa, lost to the Super Eagles ar the semi-finals stage in Ivory Coast, but then placed third after beating DR Congo via penalties.
Their presence in Uyo for Friday’s match at Godswill Akpabio International Stadium inevitably brought to the fore questions about payments of the AFCON 2023 prize money by Confederation of African Football (CAF).
Feelers from the Eagles’ camp on Uyo also indicated mild concern among the players about a positive update on the $4m that should have hit the coffers of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) few weeks after the team lost 2-1 to the host nation in an epic final.
However, weeks have turned into months without any comment from the NFF about any payment or not by CAF, thereby leaving all major actors in the AFCON success wondering if they have not been schemed out of their share in the dollar booty.
A camp source told sports247.ng in confidence: “We don’t know anything about the runners-up money. That’s a question that the NFF should answer.
“The normal procedure of such payments is that the NFF president and the secretary-general are the ones who CAF communicates with.
“In fact, CAF forwards all payments through the NFF secretary-general, who then updates the president.
“So, any question regarding our AFCON runners-up money should be answered by them.”
The development was being discussed in hushed tones ahead of the 8pm kick-off between both teams on Friday, but it is expected to snowball into a heated debate after this historic game at The Nest of Champions.
