Daily Independent Online.
*
Wednesday, July 07, 2004.
Referees slammed over leadership tussle
Stories by Emeka
Nwani
Senior
Correspondent,
Lagos
Everyday in the media, referees in Nigeria
are battling to campaign about the need to be voted in to lead the next set of
executives.
The way and manner they set out to tell
Nigerians about how they hope to sanitise the system gives football followers
hope that the men in black can live up to the expectations.
But the disturbing fact about the shouts
for a new Nigeria Referees Association is that these referees and their
executives have not done anything to make the arbirters sit up in league
Nigerian matches.
If they had used the same energy with which
they are campaigning to turn a new leaf, local football in the country would
have been better.
In the league and other competition, you
get to hear coaches and team managers complain that referees were not fair in
their handling of matches.
And the executives have not taken any major
decision to ban their own except the Nigeria Football Association.
A team manager with one of the premier
league clubs who preferred anonymity note that it is a shame that referees are
making noise about the next election because the president automatically become
a member of the Nigeria Football Association.
“ In South Africa, there is a kind of
soul searching now. Several of their top referees are in one problem or the
other because they have been found to be collecting bribe to fix matches.
“ That is the kind of thing that
should happen in Nigeria. But what we have is a set of people who are daily
faced with the decaying nature of our football characterised by bad officiating
and they are not doing anything.
“ What should be uppermost in their
minds is not to occupy the exalted seats at the executive arm of the
Association, but to develop referees in the country.
“ By the time the referees change
their ways, the league would have grown in leaps and bounds. That should occupy
their minds and not threatening one another before the elections in Makurdi
next month.
“ There should be a new orientation
fro the men in black”.
Sam Jaja, Abel Ehigie and Ray Nnaji are the
contestants for the post of the Chairmanship of the Association.
