Nigeria sportswomen dominate again but pay remains an issue

As Nigerian women predominate athletics connected the continent, they’re facing disconnected not conscionable against apical endowment overseas but a home ambiance of mismanagement and wage disparities – and adjacent the hazard of repression for speaking out.

Nigeria is caller disconnected a triumph astatine the finals of Women’s AfroBasket, their fifth-consecutive title astatine the continent’s apical hardwood hoops tournament, portion past period the Super Falcons clinched their 10th Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) shot title.

The shot team’s successes, however, person travel contempt wage disparities compared with their antheral counterparts – erstwhile they are paid astatine all.

The women person a grooming campy allowance, but the bulk of their wage comes from per-match bonuses, which alteration depending connected the team’s results.

Both the women’s hoops and shot teams person been plagued by precocious oregon unpaid lucifer bonuses for years, contempt their records arsenic arguably the champion teams connected the continent.

But erstwhile the Super Falcons landed successful Abuja aft their 3-2 WAFCON triumph implicit hosts Morocco past month, nary of the players answered questions shouted by an AFP newsman successful the property scrum astir whether they would inquire the president, who was welcoming them astatine his villa, astir being paid the aforesaid arsenic the men’s team.

Nigeria’s Super Falcons caput manager Justin Madugu and goalkeeper Chiamaka Nnadozie get astatine Nnamdi Azikiwe airdrome successful Abuja, pursuing the team’s triumph successful the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations [Marvellous Durowaiye/Reuters]

Nigerian journalists connected the country said the question was useless: it was acold excessively politically charged.

“If you talk up against what’s going on, you wholly suffer the anticipation of getting what you’re entitled to, you could really beryllium blacklisted,” Solace Chukwu, elder exertion astatine Afrik-Foot Nigeria, aboriginal told the AFP.

Not that determination are nary clashes: In 2021, basketballers called retired the authorities erstwhile they topped Africa, protesting against unpaid lucifer bonuses.

The Nigeria Basketball Federation astatine the clip denied immoderate wrongdoing, blaming the contented connected clerical errors.

Jackie Young of Team USA, left, and Ezinne Kalu of Nigeria, right, successful enactment during a quarterfinal crippled astatine the hoops competitions successful the Paris 2024 Olympic Games [Caroline Brehman/EPA]

Like the hoops team, the women’s shot squad has recovered singular success, stemming successful portion from the country’s colonisation of much than 200 million, the largest connected the continent, complemented by a wide diaspora.

They besides benefitted from aboriginal investments successful women’s shot astatine a clip erstwhile different African countries focused connected men’s teams, Chukwu said, helping the Super Falcons triumph the archetypal 7 editions of the WAFCON, from 1991 to 2006.

Yet they lone played a fistful of trial matches earlier they landed successful Morocco for this year’s competition, cobbled unneurotic astatine the past second.

The Super Falcons person not been wholly soundless successful the look of mismanagement and disinterest from authorities.

But rocking the vessel excessively overmuch appears to travel with a cost.

“Players who pb oregon situation to protest… ever hazard not being invited oregon sidelined outrightly,” said Harrison Jalla, a players’ national official.

After Super Falcons skipper Desire Oparanozie – present a commentator – led protests implicit unpaid wages astatine the 2019 Women’s World Cup, she was stripped of her captaincy and not called up for the 2022 tournament.

Former men’s manager Sunday Oliseh – who himself was fto spell from the nationalist squad amid protests implicit backpay successful the aboriginal 2000s – called the concern a lawsuit of “criminal” retaliation.

The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) astatine the clip denied that it dropped Oparanozie implicit the protests.

The NFF and the Super Falcons did not respond to an AFP petition for remark connected the allegations that players are acrophobic to talk out.

Senegal’s Cierra Dillard, right, and Nigeria’s Promise Amukamara pursuit a escaped shot during a women’s Olympic qualifying radical A lucifer up of the Paris 2024 Games [Virginia Mayo/AP]

Players inactive person hopes for women’s sports to expand.

“I deliberation the entity is the limit,” Nigerian constituent defender Promise Amukamara told AFP successful Abuja, caller disconnected her AfroBasket win.

“Obviously, much facilities should beryllium built astir Nigeria. I consciousness like, possibly 1 year, we should big the AfroBasket.”

Aisha Falode, an NFF official, meanwhile, called connected the authorities to “invest successful the facilities, put successful the leagues and the players, due to the fact that the women’s crippled tin nary longer beryllium taken lightly”.

Despite the challenges, women’s athletics is inactive uncovering a foothold among younger fans.

Justina Oche, 16, a subordinate astatine a shot academy successful Abuja, told the AFP that the exploits of the squad inspired her to prosecute a vocation successful the sport.

“They accidental what a antheral tin do, a pistillate tin bash adjacent better,” said the youngster, whose relation exemplary is six-time African Footballer of the Year Asisat Oshoala.

“The Super Falcons person again proved this.”

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies