Nigerian Super Eagles’ fans have criticized its star players for not joining the global trend of making donations towards the fight against coronavirus.

Recall that Argentine superstar, Lionel Messi, donated €1m to a hospital in Barcelona, and Christiano Ronaldo and his agent, Jorge Mendes, donated €1m to hospitals in Portugal. In like manner, AC Milan forward, Zlatan Ibrahimovic also donated €100,000 and created a GoFundMe account to raise funds for the cause.

The trio are among a long list of starts in sports who have donated money to fight the scourge of deadly virus.

In Nigeria, individuals and groups are making contributing both financially and mobilization wise, towards fighting against the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Top financial institutions in Nigeria donated N1bn each to the cause, while also making available facilities for isolation centres.

According to a sports enthusiast, Tosin Adesina, the inaction and silence of the Super Eagles’ players indicated a lack of patriotism for their country.

We are battling a pandemic and irrespective of how rich the government is, it needs support from external people. We have seen how Dangote and a lot of other people have trooped in to support the government, including religious organisations.

He said:

These footballers were given the leverage to be where they are now by Nigeria to move to their clubs and they fly Nigeria’s flag every now and then, so, they need to give back to their country.

Another Nigerian, Dare Adewumi, who reechoed that view, said,

It’s never too late to do so because we’re just facing the reality of this deadly virus here.

Secondly, it’s not by force, but by choice, showing interest in another person’s well-being. Ighalo gave out N5,000 to 10 fans last week but can’t say if it’s a daily thing or one off. If they eventually make donations we’ll thank them and if not, nothing against them.

I think its lack of patriotism,” Abraham Elder said. “Giving is actually not a question of how much you offer but the intent. They can agree to give just a little percentage of their allowance (say 10 per cent) each and it will go a long way and in their names. It will be another opportunity for them to put their names on the global map. I have been expecting to hear from the likes of Mikel, Ndidi, Iwobi and the NPFL players as well.

On the other hand, Timilehin Adelugba said some of the Eagles’ players have their own pressing responsibilities to attend to.

However, he still felt that some of them who are well paid were supposed to make donations to fight coronavirus.

Not all of them are really rich like that, so I feel probably they have responsibilities too but nevertheless someone like Ighalo and others in Europe should be able to make donations towards the pandemic because I believe they are well to do,

he said.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.