The President of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Alhaji Ibrahim Musa Gusau has promised that the soccer governing body will roll out more incentives to motivate their players to win the ongoing 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco.
Sports247 reports that Gusau was happy with the Eagles’ early qualification for the round of 16, following their 3-2 victory over Tunisia on Saturday, and admitted that the players deserve additional rewards to inspire them for more victories.
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The NFF’s supremo added that he was personally excited that the team recorded victories from their first two matches in Fes, Morocco, and noted that having longer time together in camp makes them play better.
Gusau retorted, “When you come to this kind of tournament, you always feel happy when you see that, after two matches, you have secured your slot into the round of 16. By the grace of God, we’ll take it up from there.
“The major issue is that these boys are brought in from so many different clubs but, in the qualifiers, we have a slim period of mostly nine or ten days only to play two matches, including the process of travelling to different venues.
“So, it sometimes becomes very difficult to bring them together within one week, and you want them to win two matches. It’s always very difficult to do that.
“On the other hand, for the two matches that we’ve played at this AFCON, which invariably came within one week that they assembled, there was a lot of difference.”
Gusau added that staying together in a squad’s base camp at a major competition accords national team players the opportunity to bond tighter, which he believes is a huge factor accounting for the Eagles’ bright start to their campaign at AFCON 2025.
He reasoned further, “By the grace of God, they now have a lot of time to blend together, to know each other and understand one another. That’s why you see the progression of our team match-in-match-out.
“We are also doing our best to motivate them. That’s why the camp is quiet. Match-in-match-out, we’ll continue trying to do our best to ensure that we encourage them by giving them more incentives.”
Gusau concluded with an emphatic declaration that the NFF will go the extra mile in motivating the Nigerian players, as he promised: “We’ll give them more incentives, so that they can get to the final and eventually win the cup.”
