… It's time the NFF declare a state of emergency in Referees Association
If at ordinary CHAN tournament, no single Nigerian referee considered good enough to handle any of the assignments, then, Refereeing body brings more shame to Nigeria than any other institution.
The available records show that over 70 referees have been selected to serve as Centre Referees, Assistants, VMOs and instructors, our arbiters fall below par for consideration. The highest assignments remaining for them to gallivanting is regional competition and qualifying series which can be regarded as crumbs for beginners compared to major tournaments like World Cup, AFCON and CHAN.
Whenever we call their attention to the poor officiating made by their members, they call us unprinted names, Coaches get fined, club officials sanctioned and football fans abandoned stadia and watch European football for Refereeing shenanigans.
One of their ogas who feeds fat on corruption for so many years is almost every platform attacking my humble self alleging that we use inferior media equipments to capture and record actions therefore, we have no basis for questioning their sense of judgement. I laugh at him
Shamefully enough, those who have modern day equipments have watched the videos we sent to CAF Media channels and answered them that they are truly not good enough to be at the CHAN party in their own continent. Is that not a sign of truth prevailing over falsehood if Eritrea, Djibouti, Comoros, Togo are considered above Nigeria?
Going forward, this sad development calls for sober reflection in the Refereeing Committee in Nigeria and if we are not unaware of this rot and tackle it headling now, Nigerian Football will suffer untold backwardness in few years by the action of members of Nigeria Football Referees Association.
I wish to humbly state that it's time the NFF declared a state of emergency in Refereeing and address this unfortunate development in Nigerian football before it leads to loss of lives at Match venues in the forthcoming season.
To stitch in time saves nine.
I so submit.
Sunday Agunbiade (Mr VAR)
