• Gamblers lament Eagles late victory
DESPITE not receiving their bonuses at the on-going South Africa 2013 Nations Cup, players of the Super Eagles say they are in high spirit and ready to die on the pitch when they confront Cote d’Ivoire on Sunday.
Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) officials say they are still waiting for the federation’s secretary general, Musa Amadu, to come to South Africa with the last batch of Nations Cup funds.
The Guardian learnt that the federation used the first batch to service take care of the contingent that came with the team.
An angry federation official told The Guardian that some members of the delegation don’t even know where the Eagles train, adding, “all they do is to use the federation’s chartered buses to move round town shopping from one mall to another.”
But the players are not disturbed by such things because of their ambition to write their names in gold.
Defender, Elderson Echejile, told The Guardian that the Eagles are concentrating on how to cage the Elephants on Sunday.
He said, “No one in this team is afraid of Drogba, the Toure brothers or even Gervinco.
“We believe the club ojne plays for becomes immaterial once you step onto the pitch. All we need is to stay fit and Nigerians will see what we can do.”
Another defender, Azubuike Egwueke, who has not featured in this competition due to illness, says he is fit to play in quarterfinals, adding that he has been waiting for this opportunity to showcase his skills.
Meanwhile, gamblers, who came to Rustenberg hoping to reap from Nigeria’s early massacre of Ethiopia on Tuesday, are ruing their misfortune after the Eagles defeated the Walya Antelopes 2-0 late into the game.
They wore long faces as they filed out of the Royal Bafokeng Stadium. At first, no one knew the reason behind their sadness until it started to emerge that they lost huge sums of money in gambling betting in the game against Ethiopia.
The Guardian learnt that shortly before the game, the gamblers, some of them Nigerians, from various parts of the South Africa, stormed the city of Rustenburg to stake huge amounts of money on the game.
With the confidence that the Eagles would roast the Antelopes, the gamblers stormed a betting company, Super Bet, and focused their bets mainly on the first half.
“They thought that we would win the game in the first half so they staked all their life on the first half. Some were said to have staked 20, 000 rand on the game, while some others staked 10, 000, 5,000 and 3,000 rands. No one thought the Eagles would struggle till the second half of the game. They all lost their money and that is why everybody is so sad,” one of the gamblers told The Guardian.