By Ishaya Ibrahim
A member of the Super Eagles team at the Korea/Japan 2002 World Cup, Duke Udi, has recalled with pride how then team captain, Sunday Oliseh, stood his ground and ensured that every member of the team, whether home-based foreign, earned the same match allowance.
Udi, who was then a player with Julius Berger football club before his call-up to feature in the Nigerian team of 2002, recalled how Oliseh stopped a discriminatory payment of N200,000 to home-based Super Eagles players as match allowance while their foreign-based colleagues were handed $5,000 (approximately N600,000 using the then exchange rate of N120.)
Udi said: “Oliseh said it was injustice to give a person N200,000 who played a match and another person who didn’t play a match is given $5,000 simply because he’s a foreign-based. He said everybody should return their money. And that if that money was not returned, he would not go to see (Peter) Odili who was already waiting to receive us.
“When we all gave him the money, he kept it in his room and said we should all go and honour Odili first because he was waiting for us.
“When we saw Odili, he gave us another $5,000 each. So, once we returned, he told them (NFF) that the players had returned the money. So, he ensured that everyone was paid $5,000 each whether home based or foreign based.”
Oliseh, who shared the video on his X handle on Thursday, said it brought tears to his eyes.
He said: “This brought tears to my eyes!! Thank you Duke Udi. Hopefully you now understand why our beloved Nigeria needs us all to collectively put her and our brothers & sisters first. Ignore backstabbers & watch God make them miserable..”
This brought tears to my eyes!! Thank you Duke Udi. Hopefully you now understand why our beloved Nigeria needs us all to collectively put her and our brothers & sisters first. Ignore backstabbers & watch God make them miserable.. pic.twitter.com/vsPlKUYsEV
— Sunday Oliseh (@SundayOOliseh) February 1, 2024
