Billionaire investor, Mr Femi Otedola has stated that he has $250,000 in the bank for the Nigerian national football team, the Super Eagles, if they should bring home the African Cup of Nation’s trophy.
The billionaire made this pledge recently in light of the success of the national team in the ongoing AFCON 2021 tournament taking place in Cameroun.
Other prominent figures who have promised to reward the Super Eagles include the Founder of Air Peace, Mr Allen Onyema who pledged N50 million naira to the team if they keep up the good work of bringing togetherness and happiness to the Nigerian people by bringing home the AFCON trophy.
If the Super Eagles should win the AFCON tournament this year it would be the fourth time they would be winning as Nigeria had previously won in 1980, 1994 and 2013.
The football game kicked off on the 9th of January 2022 and since then the super eagles have played three times, winning all three matches.
In the first match against Egypt, the super eagles won 1-0, the second one against Sudan, Nigeria won 3-1, and the third one against Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria won 2-0.
What you need to know about AFCON
- AFCON (African Cup of Nations) is the main men’s international football competition in Africa. It began in 1957 and was first hosted by Sudan.
- In the first tournament, only four countries participated (Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and South Africa) eventually South Africa was dropped bringing the number of participants down to three.
- In 1998, Nigeria withdrew from the AFCON but later rejoined in the following tournament and from then the number of countries participating in the AFCON games continued to increase and currently 24 countries participate in the AFCON games.
- AFCON 2021 was delayed due to the pandemic and was moved to 2022, it is scheduled to hold from January 9th to February 6th. The 2021 game is being hosted by Cameroon.
- In the history of the tournament, Egypt has won the most times. The last tournament was played in 2019 and was won by the Algerian national team who received the sum of $4.5 million.