May 19 , 2015 Following the dust raised over the the issue of unpaid match bonuses in Ivory Coast, the Sports minister Alain Lobognon has been sacked. Investigations trailed bonuses which should have been given to the country’s victorious 2015 Africa Cup of Nations squad in February this year but which took forever to arrive. The long delay in the money reaching some team members prompted the team’s coach Herve Renard and a midfielder Serey Die to begin an inquest on the matter.
Serey complained to Radio Ivory Coast, and his outburst was the start of a very public show of accusations and counter accusations in the country’s ministry of sports and the country’s football federation with each party blaming the other.
The ex minister took to his twitter page to confirm the development in a tweet that said “The prime minister received me this morning. We talked about the end of my mission at the heart of Government, at the request of the President of the Republic,”
It is recalled that the Elephants beat Ghana’s Black Stars 9-8 on penalties in the tournament’s final in Equatorial Guinea to clinch their second African title. The win prompted a delighted President Alassane Ouattara to give each member of the 23-man squad a house worth $52,000 and the same amount in cash when they arrived home.
Let’s hope all this is sorted so that these players can get the rewards they rightfully earned