The Nigeria Cup Winners owned by billionaire oil magnate, Ifeanyi Ubah have been granted a short break, but the players are heading home without three months’ salaries.
And they have also not been paid for winning this year’s Federation Cup, which has qualified them to play in next year’s CAF Confederation Cup.
The players were each paid 50,000 Naira instead and this did not go down well with many of them.
“Most of us are not happy that we were not paid our salaries as well as the bonus for the Federation Cup final win,” lamented one of the affected players.
“As far as I am concerned, the club owner’s has misplaced his priorities. He has the money but he needs to deal with needs according to their order of priority.
“Anyway that is one-man business for you.”
Meanwhile, Abia Warriors kept their pre-season unbeaten run intact when they held FC Ifeanyiubah to a goalless draw on Sunday at the Ifeanyiubah International Stadium, Nnewi in a friendly match.
The Umuahia side have had pre-season preparations in Calabar and Asaba before proceeding to Nnewi to tackle the Anambra Warriors in the tune-up tie.
Abia Warriors’ assistant coach, Patrick Ngwaogu who witnessed the encounter revealed that the 2016 Federation Cup champions came all out to win the tie to make amends for their poor show in the recently held NPFL Super Four pre-season tournament in Enugu and that they fielded a strong side but that they were undone by the Umuahia side’s who were desperate to hang on to their impressive showing since the pre season started.
Ngwaogu told Goal: ”It was an impressive performance from both teams but FC Ifeanyiubah showed the more hunger and even had the opportunity to open the scoreline from the penalty spot but they lost it and we didn’t give any chance away again after then.
“We have gone to Calabar and also stopped over in Asaba before we travelled to Nnewi to face FC Ifeanyiubah.
“We have gone back to Umuahia and we will prepare for another match on Tuesday against Ebonyi United before the management will decide on what happens next regarding the rest of the pre season exercises.”