FIFA COVID-19 PALLIATIVES
- Ghanaian clubs get FIFA and CAF palliatives
President of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Pinnick, has said that the federation will roll out palliatives for football clubs in the country within the next two weeks.
Speaking during a live session on NFF’s official Instagram page on Thursday, Pinnick said the NFF is at the moment expecting a total sum of $1million from world football-governing body, FIFA, and another $500,000 from the African confederation, CAF.
“We would take from these various monies and add also from monies that we are expecting from our corporate partners, and see what we can give to each of the clubs in these four cadres,” stressed the NFF Chief.
Pinnick’s reaction was to a question on wether the NFF would not disburse funds from the global body, FIFA as regards to relieving football clubs of their financial burdens during this pandemic.
Pinnick enumerated the funds being expected and how the Federation intend to use them:
“We’re expecting about $1 million from FIFA and we’re expecting about $500,000 for Women’s Football. We are also expecting about $500,000 from CAF,” began Pinnick.
“We also have some funds from Nike, Nigerian Breweries and some of our partners and once we get them, then we will give the clubs monies based on what we have.”
Pinnick however stressed that while the NFF will do same, he does not believe in playing to the gallery.
“We don’t want to play to the gallery by saying this is what we want to do but once we have all these funds, we hope to mop up funds from our partners (in addition to those from FIFA and CAF), then we will put all these together and streamline it and apportion it to all clubs.
“So that if we are starting the season, we know that we will start the season and finish it. The best way we can achieve this is to make sure we get some funds for these clubs without waiting for their sponsors.
“Within the next two weeks, we should be able to come out with a reasonable template with which we can appropriate all these funds,’ he said.
Pinnick stated that the Executive Committee of the NFF will meet next week to make decisions that bother on this development and other pressing matters.
Some African countries (including Senegal and Ghana) have in recent days published a breakdown of what each club in their countries will earn from the grants.
Ghana in particular gave a detailed breakdown of the palliatives to the clubs in a statement signed by GFA General Secretary, Prosper Harrison Addo.
The GFA on Wednesday released the payment plan of the FIFA and CAF Relief Funds to their various stakeholders with the Ghana Premier League (GPL) clubs having already received payments.
Premier clubs are expected to receive $15,000 from the FIFA fund of which the first tranche of $10,000 would be disbursed immediately whilst division one clubs would receive $5,000 out of which $7000 would be distributed quickly.
$2000 has been allocated to GHALCA.
