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Afrobeats superstar and entrepreneur Mr Eazi is making an impact beyond music by championing a football initiative that is changing how thousands of players across Africa receive their earnings.
As Chairman of Choplife Gaming and ambassador for betPawa’s Locker Room Bonus programme, Mr Eazi is supporting a system that has distributed more than $1.65 million directly to football players and technical staff across eight African countries.
Unlike traditional bonus structures, the Locker Room Bonus rewards players immediately after a victory. Once a domestic league team wins a match, every player and member of the technical staff receives a cash bonus directly on their mobile phone, eliminating delays and intermediaries. No bonuses are paid for drawn matches.
According to figures released by betPawa, the initiative has so far recorded more than 47,000 direct payments, benefiting approximately 7,000 players from 387 clubs across 2,998 matches in eight African countries.
Speaking about the programme, Mr Eazi stressed that the initiative is based on rewarding performance rather than charity.
“Nobody’s being rescued here. These are real players, real wins, real money in their hands. You don’t dress that up. It has to be real. They earned it,” he said.
His remarks highlight the programme’s focus on recognising athletes for their achievements on the pitch rather than presenting financial support as a charitable intervention.
One of the initiative’s most notable features is its commitment to gender equality. Women’s teams receive exactly the same per-win bonuses as their male counterparts. In Ghana, for instance, players in the Malta Guinness Women’s Premier League receive the same rewards as those competing in the men’s Premier League.
Rather than operating separate funding schemes for women’s football, the programme applies a single payment system across all participating leagues.
betPawa founder Kresten Buch said the Locker Room Bonus was designed to reward competitiveness rather than function as a welfare initiative.
“It’s not charity in the sense that we are giving equal amounts of money to everyone. We are supporting competitiveness by paying the winners. It’s an outcome-based payment,” Buch explained.
He added that the concept is built around creating an efficient payment structure that rewards performance while reducing unnecessary bureaucracy.
With plans to expand into additional leagues, markets and sporting disciplines, the Locker Room Bonus continues to position itself as an innovative model for athlete remuneration across the continent, with Mr Eazi playing a leading role in promoting the initiative and its impact on African sport.
