Yemisi Izuora
The Nigerian Football Federation, NFF, is considering rolling out comprehensive insurance scheme for players, and would soon sign a contract with a bank to insure Super Eagle players who sustain injury or die playing for Nigeria.
The Football body said explained that the insurance scheme will be strictly player based whereby the players will have a compressive insurance once they have won the Nigerian jersey.
For injury, the contract is about N600 Million a year and for death, it is about N1.7 billion a year.
NFF said the development is part of the waves of sponsorship which is gradually reshaping football in Nigeria.
The President of the NFF, Amaju Pinnick on Monday said on Arise TV that the new deal will be worth N2.3bn.
The poorly funded Federation is making a huge effort to achieve ‘100 per cent funding’.
Before the mega deal which will come up on September 18, the NFF will on Monday, September,13 2020 seal a N400m sponsorship deal with Premier Lotto popularly called- ‘Baba Ijebu’.
The contract with Baba Ijebu will be for three years with an option to renew.
They had signed a deal with Air Peace as the official carrier of the national team. It is also in partnership with the country’s biggest telecom operator, MTN Nigeria.
Pinnick said, “A lot of positives are coming to the Nigerian football Federation. Today, we are going to be signing a sponsorship deal with them (Premier Lotto) of about N400m for the next three years initially then renewable.
“With the signing of Baba Ijebu today, by God’s grace I believe we will be at least 90-92 per cent of self-funding.
“Then the big one is coming on the 18th of this month and if everything goes as planned, by God’s grace we will be seeing another mega contract with one of the very massive banks.
“There is gender sensitivity in that contract that we are also making provision for the female national team. We are talking to the bank and they kind of agreed that every time the Super Falcons or female national team wins, they will create an account for them. They will pay the bonus and leave that money there until they finish paying. The money will grow for them.”
He said the sponsorship is coming as a result of the improved integrity of the country’s football body.
“We work with Pricewaterhousecoopers (PWC), we worked with Financial Derivative Company and we have come out clean,” said Pinnick.
The NFF president said that the body would abide by every tenet of the contracts entered with the different sponsors.