Amputee Football Team Captain, also culled as ‘’Special Eagles’’, Sarafadeen Olalekan, has pleaded the intervention of the Minister of Youths and Sports Development, Sunday Dare concerning the team members unpaid allowances following financial challenges of a handful of them.
He lamented, “Other federations have received their allowances but for the Special Eagles, we are yet to receive ours before the pandemic lockdown up till this very moment, there has not been anything and it is already a year plus now that we went to Angola and came second, life has not been easy for most of the amputee footballers.”
A substantial handful of the players are out of their homes due to the issue of money they owe their landlords and their sources of making a living was disrupted by the pandemic and protest,” he wailed.
Among the team members, one of the team members who had just nationalised as a Nigeria was part of the country’s success story “but he currently sleeps under the bridge, “we have a Ghanaian who had just nationalised to Nigeria, he played for us till we got to the finals but has been finding life really difficult.”
“He was asked to move out of the National Stadium where he resides so he had to start his life under the bridge. During the pandemic, we did not receive any palliative at all, and most of the players have their own families that they are taking care of. I hope our plea would be attended to and our allowances are paid,” the amputee player said.”
Austin Ugwu, the Assistant Captain, urged the Federal Government to place the amputee team members on monthly allowances as it would go a long way in helping the players take care of themselves and stay in shape to perform for the country.
