{"id":10804,"date":"2016-08-12T19:48:38","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T19:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=10804"},"modified":"2016-08-12T19:48:38","modified_gmt":"2016-08-12T19:48:38","slug":"olympic-dream-team-may-boycott-quarter-final-over-unpaid-allowances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=10804","title":{"rendered":"Olympic: Dream Team may boycott quarter-final over unpaid allowances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><code><script src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\" async=\"\"><\/script><br \/>\n <!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n <ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/code><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=9785&amp;ad_type=59&amp;rl=180\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The coach of Nigeria\u2019s Olympic football squad, Samson Siasia, said on Friday that he will support players boycotting Saturday\u2019s football quarter-final against Denmark over unpaid allowances, the Guardian newspaper reports<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have only been paid allowances for 11 days. There is no match bonus. What about all the months we have been training in Nigeria and Atlanta? That\u2019s not fair,\u201d Siasia told Nigerian radio.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria have been embroiled in one crisis after another during the Rio Games.<\/p>\n<p>They were stranded for several days at their training base in Atlanta before flying to Brazil, and then the players had to beg Siasia not to quit after a win over Sweden.<br \/>\n\u201cWe have been disrespected from all angles \u2013 by the the sports ministry, the Nigeria Football Federation. Is that how you will treat your own children? We are not street kids,\u201d Siasia said, adding that he had not received his salary \u201cfor the past five months\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything is upside down and the boys don\u2019t want to play anymore. Whatever they want to do, I\u2019m with them. They are right for fighting for their rights.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI cannot do more than what I have done to get this team up to this level. I have done my best and now I am tired.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, <a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Dream-team.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-10805\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-10805\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Dream-team-300x203.jpg\" alt=\"Dream team\" width=\"300\" height=\"203\" srcset=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Dream-team-300x203.jpg 300w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Dream-team.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>It has been revealed that Mikel John Obi, had to part with $4,000 of his personal money, to ensure that the Nigeria Olympic team did not miss their flight to Salvador.<br \/>\nPlayers and officials of the Dream Team VI, were held to ransom in Sao Paulo, over unpaid bills incurred by additional officals.<\/p>\n<p>Organizers of the Games, insisted on a team of 25 players \u2013 18 players and seven officials.<\/p>\n<p>A source confirms that it was the responsibility of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), to offset the bills of the extra five officials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just arrived Salvador now from Sao Paolo. We nearly missed our flight because of unpaid bills in the hotel. The hotel held us to ransom,\u201d a team official told AfricanFootball.com<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\" async=\"\"><\/script><br \/>\n <!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n <ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe problem is that all the additional officials here in Brazil are the responsibility of the Nigeria Football Federation, who said they will pay for them, but they did not pay for them again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe affected officials included the team\u2019s media officer, the team coordinator, the kits manager in charge of players and officials\u2019 kits and the accompanying assistant director technical.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA call was put across to the honourable minister of youths and sports, he said we should put the bill in the (credit) card but the card didn\u2019t work. They tried and tried but the minister said that only 18 players and seven officials should be captured as regards payment according to the rules of the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, the hotel bills of these other officials, about five of them cost the sum of over $4,000. They held us hostage for more than one hour and we nearly missed our flight. It was Mikel (Obi) who rescued us by paying the money.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can tell you honestly speaking that this incident is not the fault of the minister because the minister listed the people to be accommodated which were 18 players and seven officials.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><code><script src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\" async=\"\"><\/script><br \/>\n <!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n <ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/code><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The coach of Nigeria\u2019s Olympic football squad, Samson Siasia, said on Friday that he will support players boycotting Saturday\u2019s football quarter-final against Denmark over unpaid allowances, the Guardian newspaper reports \u201cWe have only been paid allowances for 11 days. There is no match bonus. What about all the months we have been training in Nigeria [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[2710,2709,2708],"class_list":["post-10804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-mikel-john-obi","tag-nigeria-football-federation","tag-samson-siasia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Dream-team.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-2Og","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10804"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10806,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10804\/revisions\/10806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}