NFF cuts Keshi’s pay to N4m

Stephen Keshi

The PUNCH has confirmed that Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi will not receive as much pay as he got during his first tenure as the Super Eagles coach.

Our correspondent learnt on authority on Tuesday that the new contract being offered him by the Nigeria Football Federation has his salary as N4m per month as against the N5m he was paid by the previous administration.

An official of the federation who asked not to be quoted because he was not authorised to speak on the issue said the current economic situation in the country was put into consideration in arriving at the salary for the former Eagles captain.

He said, “What has been done is just a simple adjustment of the pay to fit into the reality of our time. The football system is not different in any way from the general economy of the country.

“We are all aware that the world oil market has tumbled down and this is not peculiar to Nigeria. And so as other countries adjust we too will have to cut budget to reality. Would it make any sense to say N10m and not be able to even pay N1m at the end of the month? We are being realistic and we believe that he understands.”

The other argument put forward by some other members is that the coach will not be as busy as he was during the last tenure with one major tournament already gone during the negotiation as Nigeria failed to qualify for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations which held in Equatorial Guinea with Keshi in charge.

It was gathered that Keshi’s manager had pressed for N7m which the NFF officials said they could not afford.

Apart from the cut in salary, the coach has also been offered a two-year deal which will terminate in 2017. And as The PUNCH exclusively reported last week, Keshi’s new contract also demands that he gets to at least the semi final stage of the 2017 Africa Nations Cup before any further extension can be discussed.

The NFF president was widely quoted on Tuesday by some online portals as saying that the federation expects to receive the response to the offer from Keshi this week. The coach is also in the running for Burkina Faso job against others.

Keshi’s first term with the NFF ended with the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Since then the issue of contract negotiation has been dragging. The NFF board had asked him to go but had to return him to the Eagles’ bench after pressures from the Presidency to retain him.