Association promises to sanction erring referees

The President of the Nigeria Referees Association, Sanni Zubair, on Monday, reiterated the body’s commitment to ensure that referees performing below par were flushed out of the country’s domestic leagues.

Zubair said this to the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos against the backdrop of incessant cases of poor officiating by match officials.

NAN reports that the 2023/2024 Nigeria Premier Football League season is 10 weeks old, but with deafening complaints over poor officiating.

NAN reports that on November 6, the Nigeria Football Federation suspended 14 referees in the ongoing NPFL season over poor officiating.

The following referees were suspended: Bawa Buhari, Chukwuka Jahlove, Akinwale Tomiwa, Saeed Abdulaziz, Jimmy Aimugbonrie, Brown Ebenezer, Atuwho Morrison, Imamu Maliki, Sunday Azi, and the match officials (four) involved in a Matchday Six fixture between Sunshine Stars and Abia Warriors.

The beautiful game of football in the country is constantly threatened by bad officiating week in and week out. No week passes without disagreements over referees’ decisions.

Zubair said, “Aside from the players, a referee has the utmost power to make or mar a match; we have put in place several measures to stand as deterrents.

“We don’t care who the godfather is; once the fact has been established that a referee has erred deliberately, such a person will face the full wrath of the law guiding principles of officiating.

“Our recent decision to punish some match officials shows that we’re not playing; we will do what we can to ensure that we flush out bad referees and make players have confidence in officiating 100 per cent.”

Furthermore, video footage from the Matchday Seven fixture between Bendel Insurance and Remo Stars in Benin unveiled a contentious moment where a Remo Stars player’s potential goal of the season was controversially disallowed.

(NAN)