Former Super Eagles Striker Brown Ideye launched a scathing attack against Nigerian Premier Football League Club Enyimba FC for neglecting players’ welfare and the club management’s inconsistency in paying match bonuses.
In a statement on the Bet9ja Home Turf podcast, the 2013 AFCON winner expressed his intense disappointment at the NPFL giants for denying players their hard-earned daily match allowances and bonuses. He revealed that players are typically paid a meagre sum of N7000 or N8000 per day during away matches and noted the absence of a fixed payment plan.
“At Enyimba, we are receiving N7,000 a day. Sometimes N8,000. The money is not even stable. Some days it’s N7k, some days it’s N8k,” Ideye said.
“Let’s say we’re coming to Lagos and we have a game on Sunday, they’d pay N7,000 Friday and N7,000 Saturday, Sunday, you’re on your own,” Ideye lamented.
Occasionally, inconsistent payments are made to the team captain, who distributes them amongst the players. The payments do not cover the costs of players’ feeding and the purchase of bare essentials. Players are left to cater for their daily necessities on a paltry sum. The striker, whose return to the NPFL with The Aba Warriors in December 2024 was met with much fanfare, stressed that match bonuses are unconventionally delayed till the end of the season, as opposed to immediate payments to players after the match or monthly.
“The worst part is you don’t receive a match bonus weekly or monthly, you receive it at the end of the season. It depends on what the captain, chairman or director agreed on before the start of the league. They don’t have a fixed structure. If it’s a game we really need to win, they may raise it to N30k or N40k. But averagely, it’s N15k, sometimes N10k. If you’re not among players in the match day, you’ll get like N5,000,” Ideye said.
A stark contrast to his first stint in the NPFL, Ideye decried the decline in the treatment and welfare of football players.
“Travelling allowance was 15k, feeding you get breakfast and you get dinner, so like 30k a day… and match bonuses come every week, not monthly, every week“, Ideye surmised.
The 36-year-old striker reiterated his dissatisfaction with the Aba-based club in a statement fueled by outrage on X:
His desperate outcry has been met with a myriad of statements from fans and critics across Nigeria. The opinions of netizens have varied on X, with some users calling out Enyimba for their player neglect, while some feel Ideye has taken a wrong approach. The Nwankwo Kanu-led administration has come under fire since Ideye released his statement. One user, @droayung, revealed, “My friend plays for Enyimba. His wife delivered a baby a couple of months back. Anytime I ask him how he is, he just says, my brother how we go do nah, we dey survive. And to think his team pays better than most in the league, breaks my heart everytime.”
Unfortunately, Nigerian football clubs have become a microcosm of the decadent situation in the corruption-engulfed country. This is not the first time NPFL Clubs have withheld salaries and bonuses from players. This trend is fast becoming a norm and should be met with harsh penalties for all offending clubs to deter others. The incessant controversies won’t do The NPFL’s declining reputation any good. League officials & Clubs have to do better.
