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By Seyi Babalola
The Super Eagles have resumed training in Rabat, Morocco, ahead of Thursday’s 2026 FIFA World Cup African playoffs semi-final against Gabon, following a resolution of match bonus problems with the Nigeria Football Federation.
Promise Efoghe, the team’s media officer, made the announcement on Wednesday.
“Issues resolved. Super Eagles to train at 5 pm,” Efoghe announced to journalists in an official WhatsApp group.
Eric Chelle’s men boycotted what would have been their second training session on Tuesday in protest of unfulfilled promises by the NFF over their entitlements.
With the development, the Super Eagles would have had only one training session with the entire squad before the crucial game.
Although they had 16 players in camp on Monday, only 14 took part in their full recovery session as the Sevilla duo, Akor Adams and Chidera Ejuke, sat out.
Tuesday’s boycott became public knowledge, a few hours before what would have been their second training session in Rabat.
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“The full squad, including officials, withheld from training today (Tuesday) in Morocco because of unresolved issues with outstanding payments.
According to reports from Morocco, the players and officials have since been in negotiation with the NFF and the National Sports Commission, before a compromise was reached.
Although details of the meeting haven’t been made public, NFF president, Ibrahim Gusau, in an interview released on Wednesday, has also clarified the bonus row.
“It’s not true that we have owed for 30 matches. Immediately after the AFCON last year, we sat down with the leaders of the team and we negotiated.
“So, before we came back to this year’s qualifiers, we reached an agreement with them and everything was cleared. So, if there is any outstanding we have with the Super Eagles, it has to do with the qualifiers, and these qualifiers we are playing, we, the NFF and the National Sports Commission, have reached an agreement with them. It’s not an issue of after the match we give you a match bonus, let’s go if we qualify, we are giving you so so amount of money.
“So, it’s not an issue of after every match; this is the match bonus we are going to give you, and they agreed. So anytime they are coming now, we just give them an appearance fee, which we have been doing through the National Sports Commission,” Gusau told Elegbete TV.
The Super Eagles will take on the Panthers of Gabon in the first semi-final at the playoffs in Rabat on Thursday.
The highly anticipated encounter will start at 5pm Nigerian time.
