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By Emma Njoku
Veteran coach, Bernard Ogbeh, and 21 others, including coaches and players, have cried out over non payment of their outstanding salaries, sign on fees and match bonuses by the management of Akwa United Football Club of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, seven years after the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) ruled in their favour on the matter.
The coaches and players had petitioned the Players’ Status/Arbitration Committee of the NFF, sometime in June 2015, to prevail on the reigning Nigeria Premier League (NPL) champions to pay them over N47 million being outstanding financial entitlements due to them at the time they parted ways with the club. Speaking on behalf of himself and 21 others, coach Ogbeh, who joined Akwa United as technical adviser/head coach midway into the 2009/2010 league season, and left the club at the end of the 2010/2011 season, said having waited in vain for the payment of their outstanding financial entitlements more than four years after they parted ways with the club, they had no option than to take their case(s) to the Players’ Status/Arbitration Committee in a joint petition.
Supporting their claims with various letters written by the players’ status/arbitration committee of the NFF to the management of Akwa United FC, Coach Ogbeh, who spoke on behalf of the rest, said officials of the club did not honour two invitations by the committee, neither have they paid him and the other coaches and players their various claims amounting to N47, 050, 000.00 (Forty-seven million and fifty thousand naira), as directed by the committee.
