By Esther Egbe
National Association of Nigerian Professional Footballers, NANPF, has called on League Management Company, LMC, to investigate and sanction any Nigerian Professional Football League club that refuses to give players their contract agreement documents and also those paying lesser than the agreed minimum salaries of NPFL players which is One hundred and fifty thousand naira (N150,000),National Daily gathered.
NANPF received complaints from players from different clubs but Kwara United attitude towards refusal to release contract agreement documents and payment of Seventy thousand naira (N70,000) as salaries instead of One hundred and fifty thousand (N150,000) is worrisome, therefore the league management should not hesitate to take necessary action against a team like Kwara United to serve as deterrent to higher clubs, National Daily learnt.
The secretary general to the Union, Comrade Austin Popo told National Daily that , “We want to draw the attention of LMC to complains we received from Kwara United players about their club paying the sum of seventy thousand naira (N70,000) to their players as salaries as against the agreed (N150,000) minimum wage. Kwara United are still paying the amount of money they paid when the club were in the second tier of the league last season and have refused to speak with their employees on increase of salaries since the beginning of the 2017/18 NPFL season. We urged LMC to compell Kwara United and other clubs to pay the agreed minimum salary to the players and also give each of them copies of their contract agreement documents.” The Players Union had earlier written to the management of Kwara United to release copies of the players contract to the players but got no response from the Club
Austin concluded that the players Union has several options but wish to use this medium to urge LMC to take actions against the erring clubs irrespective of their political or geographical affiliation. The players are suffering so much and deserved to be treated well.
There are a lot of clubs that are involved in all these atrocities but we can only work with the availabile information. Some players and coaches are not free to talk to to us because they fear they may be sacked by their employers and we can’t do anything until we are informed.