NFF budgets $3.6m to fly Nollywood stars, Aki & Pawpaw, others to Brazil

Pawpaw & Aki

SHOWBIZPLUSNG can authoritatively reveal that Nollywood heavyweights, Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Iheme globally known as Aki and Pawpaw will be among the famous faces storming Brazil with the Super Eagles, on the bill of the Federal Government.

And to make this dream come true, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has budgeted a total sum of $3, 606,816 to take care of over 100 Nigerians during the Mundial. The number is outside the large contingent already being proposed by the Nigeria Football Supporters Club to cheer the team.

  The amount according to the NFF will take care of air ticket, accommodation and allowances of the Nigerian contingent, which will cut across the members of the National Assembly, the NSC, Nollywood stars, chairman and secretaries of the various state football associations, members of the press and other stakeholders in Nigerian football.
  The estimated amount is contained in the over N2 billion Brazil 2014 World Cup budget presented to the Senate Committee on Sports yesterday by the NFF at the ongoing 2014 budget defence.
  A break down of the World Cup budget, which the NFF defended Tuesday before the Senate Sports Committee members showed that the federation plans to take a total of 20 chairmen and secretaries of state football associations at the cost of $243, 840, just as it has penciled down about 10 Nollywood stars, including popular comedians Aki and Pawpaw, at the cost of $800, 000.
  Also in the planned NFF trip to Brazil are 16 members of the National Assembly, as well as five former ministers of sports, five past chairmen or presidents of the NFF/NFA, which the federation valued to cost about $808,000.
  Also to benefit from the World Cup trip are 15 workers of the federation, five NSC management staff, as well other 50 football stakeholders in the country, who are billed to join the NFF president, members of the executive board of the federation as well as the sports minister and DG of the NSC to offer support to the Super Eagles at the World Cup.
  Speaking at the budget defence yesterday in Abuja, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Sports, Senator Adamu Gumba, who regretted the poor budgetary allocation to sports in the 2014 fiscal year, assured the NFF that it will meet with the leadership of the National Sports Commission (NSC) to see ways of meeting up with all the requirements of the NFF to ensure that the Super Eagles lack nothing in their quest to do well in Brazil.
 The NFF Secretary General, Musa Amadu, led the budget defence to the Senate.