More than a year after it was promised, the cash reward pledged to Nigeria’s Super Falcons for their record-extending tenth Women’s Africa Cup of Nations title has been paid, the National Sports Commission has confirmed.
The commission said each of the 24 players received the naira equivalent of 100,000 dollars, while members of the 11-strong technical and backroom crew got 50,000 dollars apiece. At recent exchange rates of around N1,450 to the dollar, each player’s cash award is worth roughly N145 million, and the full payout to the squad and officials comes to more than N4 billion.
The payment completes a package first announced by President Bola Tinubu at a State House reception in Abuja on 28 July 2025. At that event the President conferred the national honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) on all 24 players and the technical crew, and directed that each member be allocated a three-bedroom apartment in the Renewed Hope housing estate in the Federal Capital Territory.
The distance between promise and payment had become a source of quiet frustration. Team captain Rasheedat Ajibade said in the months after the reception that the players were still waiting for the money and other gifts, a complaint that fit a familiar pattern of Nigerian national teams receiving grand pledges that take years to arrive. The commission added that the Falcons’ outstanding match allowances had now been cleared alongside the reward.
The reward traces back to one of the most dramatic nights in Nigerian football. On 26 July 2025 in Rabat, the Super Falcons came from two goals down to beat hosts Morocco 3-2, with Esther Okoronkwo driving the fightback and substitute Jennifer Echegini striking an 88th-minute winner. The victory, pursued under the tag “Mission X”, sealed a tenth continental crown and a fourth in five editions, extending Nigeria’s standing as the most successful side in the tournament’s history.
Beyond the federal reward, the triumph earned Nigeria a record one million dollars in prize money from the Confederation of African Football, which had doubled the champions’ purse for the expanded 2024 edition held in 2025. Four Falcons, goalkeeper Chiamaka Nnadozie, Michelle Alozie, Ajibade and Okoronkwo, were named in the tournament’s best eleven.
The size of the cash award divided opinion when it was first announced. Supporters cast it as overdue recognition for a team that has reached every WAFCON final since 1998 and won ten of them. Critics argued that a six-figure dollar reward sat uneasily in an economy where the national minimum wage stands at N70,000 a month and headline inflation hovered around 15 per cent through much of 2026, with many doctors, teachers and police officers earning a small fraction of what each player received.
The Presidency defended the gesture at the time. Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga likened it to prizes in popular entertainment, pointing out that a single reality television winner had taken home N150 million, and argued that sporting excellence deserved no less. State governments and the Nigeria Governors Forum also pledged separate cash gifts to the players.
The commission framed the disbursement as proof of the government’s commitment to rewarding achievement, noting that bonus arrears owed to the Super Eagles from the last Africa Cup of Nations had earlier been settled, and that the women’s basketball team, D’Tigress, was similarly honoured after winning the 2025 Women’s AfroBasket title. For the Super Falcons, the payment draws a line under a celebration that had stretched on for well over a year. Whether it marks a shift toward more timely rewards for Nigerian athletes remains to be seen.