The federal government intends to send a strong delegation to Russia to provide solid support for the Super Eagles, Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung has revealed.Speaking to State House corespondents in Abuja on Tuesday, he also assured that the players would start getting their allowances from March next year.
The minister said that the ministry was intent on avoiding the pitfalls of the past and had since submitted the budget for the tournament to the president for his intervention for timely release.
He said: “This time, we also intend to mobilize a very strong federal government delegation that will support the team because sports is also about number.
“The number of people you have on ground can also give support to the players and intimidate.
“So, we intend to go with at least a good size of the federal government delegation to give the team support.
“We intend to make it more inclusive so that Nigerians will participate in this particular victory which Nigeria is going.”
While recalling the problems of the past, the minister stated: “When you have a problem, for you to successfully address your problem, you have to review the history of your problem.
“One of the challenges we have been having in sports administration especially competition is the welfare of the players and the officiating team and we intend to set a new approach to the question of welfare.
“By March, we intend to start paying the players their allowances, camping allowances upfront.
“Now, that will go a long way to boost the morale of the players and confidence too.
“The new method of governance in football has taken the pattern of change. We will also ensure that there is unity within the football family.
“Because unity too is a key factor going by some of the reports we had in the past where poor performances were attributable to lack of unity between the family, the technical team, the officials and the players. This unity has to be promoted.”
He remarked that government would make the necessary funds available on time saying: “We will also ensure that government makes funds available on time.
“That has been why the budget for the competition has since been sent to the President for a special intervention so that government can make provision for some of the funds we need for training now before other things can come up.”
Giving a breakdown of the budget for the tournament, Dalung added: “Well we have a conservative budget of about N3 billion but out of that N3 billion, FIFA is going to raise about N900 million, our sponsors and partners are also going to put about N600 million, government will conservatively raise about N2 billion or N2.5 billion to compliment.”
