By Blessing Olawale Ikuomola and Bridget Olayiwola Ilesanmi
INTRODUCTION
Football is the most popular and distinguished sport in Nigeria that has, over the years, sustained unity and togetherness among various classes of Nigerians. Aside from being a sport in Nigeria, football also brews national passion, with about 85% of its population choosing football as their favourite sport and 65% participating in the game, according to the 2024 Repucom World Football Reports. Participation is either professional or for recreational and fun purposes. Football has spread so widely among Nigerians that it can be ranked next in line after religious activities.
However, behind this unwavering love and glory of football in Nigeria, there are some harsh, persistent, and troubling realities which stem from the issues relating to the employment of footballers in Nigeria, several breaches of employment contracts, and the failure to pay players’ salaries and bonuses. The Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) has been plagued with a series of owed salaries to players and coaches. This has led to various strike actions, protests, and constant embarrassments. For example, the protest staged by the Ondo State Football Agency over the failure to pay them 20 months’ salaries. Furthermore, in 2021, players and officials of Sunshine Stars Football Club, led by its Captain, Abe Sunday, took to the streets of Akure and the Ondo State Governor’s Office to protest the non-payment of their six months’ salaries and bonuses. The chronicles of this problem do not only sit with local clubs like Sunshine Stars and Ekiti United, but it is also prevalent at the national level, i.e., the Super Eagles and Super Falcons. An instance is when the Super Falcons refused to leave their hotel and boycotted training due to the failure of the NFF to pay their bonuses for victories against Botswana, Burundi, and Cameroon in the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations.
The issue of unpaid salaries is one of the threatening challenges that continues to recur in Nigerian football. This issue has reflected the unprofessional practices among the clubs and the NFF, with insufficient measures to discipline non-compliance with the relevant adjudicatory bodies in the Nigerian football space. Undoubtedly, unpaid salaries constitute one of the strongest grounds for contract termination in football. This is because it constitutes a fundamental breach of contract, bearing in mind that consideration (salary/wage) is one of the basic elements of a valid contract. There has been a series of unpaid salaries documented in the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) operations. The Guardian News on 24th December 2024 highlighted that the NFF failed to pay players, coaches, and even backroom staff, despite the release of ₦17 billion by the Nigerian President and the $4 million paid by CAF to the Super Eagles for finishing second in the previous AFCON in Côte d’Ivoire. Although NFF has been reported to be paying $10,000 per month, they have still failed to offset the backlog of outstanding salaries and bonuses owed to players and officials.
These problems persist despite the existence of several laws and regulations guiding employment in Nigerian football, i.e., the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, NPFL Framework and Rules, among others.
CLICK DOWNLOAD to read full article.