Football
Colin Udoh, Special to ESPN 6y

Amaju Pinnick sheds light on Nigeria's pre-World Cup plans

Nigeria Football Federation President Amaju Pinnick has shed light on the Super Eagles' preparations ahead of this summer's World Cup as Gernot Rohr's side ready themselves for the challenges to come.

Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Pinnick revealed key details surround the national side's pre-tournament friendlies including a meeting with the Democratic Republic of Congo on home soil.

"We are making an arrangement to fly in the Congolese national team because that is our responsibility," Pinnick began, as per Complete Sports Nigeria. "We are not going to give them any money.

"We would bring them here, stay for two days and take them back to their country after the match.

"They are 10 steps ahead of us in FIFA Ranking and we just want to humble them here before going to England," he added. "The tickets for the Nigeria-England match is almost sold out and it will be a good game.

"The match will be played at Wembley on June 2, and from then we will go to play Czech Republic in Austria on June 6, before moving to Russia for World Cup."

During the recent international break, the Eagles beat Poland in Wroclaw before falling to Serbia in London, and Rohr will be keen to work on his side's limitations in the upcoming clashes with the Democratic Republic of Congo, England and the Czech Republic.

Pinnick also discussed the Eagles' bonus situation, with issues over player reimbursement having affected Nigeria's World Cup campaigns in 1998 and 2014.

"We had a meeting with the team in November and we signed agreement with them that 30 percent of the FIFA money, which is $2.8million, will be paid to them," added Pinnick. "I am a very transparent person and every detail on bonus for each match up to the final, as well as share of income from FIFA money, was agreed on.

"I am not one of the federation presidents who doesn't talk about money and you can find every detail of it," the administrator continued. "The $2.8million we agreed with the players is almost 100 percent already for them to collect whenever they come.

"We met a couple of state governments and even made presentation to FIFA in raising the money and I can assure that the money is 100% certain for them to collect."

Nigeria begin their World Cup campaign against Croatia in Kaliningrad on June 16 before meeting Iceland in Volgograd six days later.

They conclude their group-stage campaign against familiar foe Argentina on June 26 at Saint Petersburg.

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