By Our Correspondent

It is no longer news that Desire Oparanozie was no longer the captain of the senior female national team, the Super falcons. What is also not relevant to the new merchants now is the fact that she is no long considered relevant to the team, perhaps for now – she was among the notable players excluded from the team when former handler, Thomas Dennerby left the team midway into the 2020 Olympic qualifying matches. The team ingloriously exited the race against unfancied Ivory Coast Ladies.

The team ingloriously exited the race against unfancied Ivory Coast Ladies.

However, what many may not understand is the fact that Desire Oparanozie’s “crime” that led to he being dethroned as the Falcons’ captain was her “boldness” in challengeing Amaju Pinnick-led Nigeria Football Federation, NFF to pay the players their match bonuses and entitlements which had lingerd for three years.

Desire Oparanozie has come out to lay bare why she was outsted from the team and dethroned from her position as the number queen of the Falcons.

She also hinted that fighting for the players’ rights was part of the reasons she was removed as the skipper of the team.

Speaking Friday during an interview session on PUNCH Online programme, Kick $ Follow, the Dijon FCO forward said she took the right step by ensuring that about $4,500 owed the Falcons by NFF was paid.

Super Falcons players and officials of the Nigerian women’s team staged a sit-in protest in Grenoble, France in June 2019 over a backlog of unpaid bonuses for World Cup appearance fees.

Before protesting in France after their Women’s World Cup exit, the team had protested over bonuses in 2004 in South Africa and 2016 in Abuja.

During the 2016 protest, members of the female team stormed the National Assembly after winning the 10th edition of the African Women championship held in Cameroon.

Oparanozie lamented that after many years of complaining, NFF was not willing to pay all the players entitled to the bonus.

She said, “Before the 2019 World Cup, we were being owed since 2016 – two match bonuses – 1,500 dollars for an away draw, and $3,000 for a home victory.

“Later, they (NFF) said they no longer pay in foreign currency, that we would be paid N500,000 instead. But I argued that the new law wasn’t in effect in 2016 and the officials agreed.

“They promised to pay us for three years but they didn’t pay us. Later, they agreed to clear the bonuses owed since 2016. So, what they did was to pay only players in the 2016 camp that are still playing in 2019. They left out others that didn’t make the 2019 team.

“I told them to pay those that didn’t make the team for 2019 while those of us still playing should be owed. We went back and forth on that for a couple of days; and in the end, they were able to pay the players that were not in the 2019 team.”

She, however, reiterated her call for equal pay between men and women footballers.

“This is doable but for some reasons, some individuals won’t want it to happen. It doesn’t have to be equal. What women earn is next to nothing compared to men. Even if it won’t be up to 100 per cent, let us close the huge gap. Being in sport as a female is not easy.”