NPFL 2024/25: How Below Per Refereeing Undermines the Sporting Integrity of Our Football Leagues
By: Chinedum Ohanusi
Haven started the 2024/25 Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) season on a high, one
would be right to conclude that lessons have been learnt from the mistakes of previous seasons, and the small investments made on Referees and refereeing by the Board of the NFF and Board of the NPFL, have started yielding dividends.
You would recall that upon taking over the mantle of leadership from erstwhile President, Amaju Pinnick; elite Referees and other match officials in Nigeria, officiating both in the NPFL and the second tier league, the NNL were owed about half a billion Naira; while the then NRA leadership, headed by Otumba Tade Azeez was as helpless as a lame duck, while the anomaly lasted.
But on taking over the mantle of leadership, Alhaji Ibrahim Gusau moved quickly to reconstitute the Referees Committee, and in conformity with set rules by FIFA, named a retired, seasoned former FIFA Referee, Faith Irabor as Chairman, to work alongside other former top football referees, in a new NFF Referees Development Committee.
The NFF Refereeing Unit also provided the desired support, and with a close monitoring of the arbiters, things started looking up; but football fans and club managers in the country wanted more improvements in officiating.
What is unclear to me is what the NFF Referees Committee and NPFL did with the Referees and Assistant Referees, as well as Referees’ Assessors that were interdicted, and eventually stood down last season. In my candid opinion, the number of Referees, Assistant Referees and other match officials is too large, and needed to be pruned down to a manageable size. In that case, those found to have performed below expectations, should have been the first to be thanked, and asked to pursue other careers or passions elsewhere.
Like I said above, many were quick to assert that we have finally turned a corner, because of the appreciable numbers of away wins recorded in the first three Match-days, and up to Day 7; but I was cautiously circumspect and events of the last two match days seems to have vindicated me – my fears!
From the encounter in Ibadan, where Heartland FC was denied a stone wall penalty; to Port Harcourt, where 3SC and their Head Coach, Gbenga Ogunbote cried blue murder after their 0-2 loss to Rivers United; the one that baffled me most was events in Enugu, where the Referee, Alaba Funmilayo gave the visiting team, Kano Pillars FC two penalties, but waved off as many as three penalty shouts from Rangers.
As a premier league referee for 8 ½ seasons, between 1998 and 2005, I was taught by the late Gabrieyesus Tesfaye, the Eritrean that officiated the 1980 Afcon final in Lagos, that “a Referee may bend the rules, but should never break it”. This is where the unwritten law, otherwise called common sense comes to play. Rangers Int’l FC are the defending champions, and the host team, so what makes referee Alaba Funmilayo think she can wave off those penal infractions and won’t be in the eye of the storm? Who does that??
Luckily, the players and fans of the Flying Antelopes were well comported and I believe their conduct should be a lesson to fans of other clubs, especially Kano Pillars, who are due to return to their Sani Abacha Stadium, very soon. Many who have commented on the Audio visual clip provided by Rangers Int’l FC, went as far as saying the referee was very lucky, that the game wasn’t played in one of the dark spots of the NPFL. And had it been in Kano that those calls were overlooked, in favour of the visitors, hell would have been let loose.
Until that clip was released by Rangers, who surprisingly have yet to escalate this matter; many of us were still in the frenzy of the harvest of goals in the NPFL, at the midweek; especially the seven goal thriller which saw Kano Pillars FC, with out-of-favour Super Eagles captain pulling the strings, beat Enugu Rangers 4-3 at the Cathedral, with veteran Captain Rabiu Ali netting twice from the penalty spot.
I have as well sought the opinion of top ranking, active and former Referees, as well as football writers and all of us arrived at a consensus that at least two of those infractions should have been called as penalty by Referee Alaba Funmilayo from Ogun State.
*The Contending Issues:*
However, it will be wrong for anyone to say that poor or biased refereeing is peculiar to Nigeria alone; even the English Premier League we sometimes prioritize above our NPFL is full of officiating drama and also has got its own fair share of poor officiating; despite the huge investments made in training, retraining of their arbiters, and the infusion of technology – viz goal line technology and the Video Assistant Referee.
In England, the recruitment, training and retraining of these match officials are domiciled with PGMOL, which is affiliated to the FA, and is run as an independent body, guided by set rules, regulations of the FA, Uefa and FIFA.
In Nigeria, the Nigeria Football Referees Association (NFRA) played the role of PGMOL and did it so well, until the exit of doyens like Chief Linus Mba, Late Festus Bolaji Okubule, and the last of them, Late Brigadier General Joro Dogo Yabilsu.
Their exit left the NFRA running on autopilot, and the NFF responded by having a Refereeing Unit set up to oversee the activities of the Referees and their umbrella body. Sadly, the NFF has not been able to match the FA in England which ensures that the PGMOL is well funded.
The imperativeness of having fit and proper Referees are multidimensional:
1. Ensures that the standard of the league is not plundered by poor refereeing decisions.
2. Ensures that the country will always have worthy champions, and representatives in CAF’s Inter-Club Championships.
3. It’s a thing of pride for any country to have one of their own officiate games at major tournaments like the Afcon finals, FIFA World Cups and Olympics.
4. Good refereeing helps in upholding the Sporting Integrity of the competitions, as well as in reducing the menace of violence and crowd troubles at our stadiums. It encourages families to see games, especially late kick-offs as an avenue to sit out (recreation).
Having listed all of these, it would be interesting to know how much the NFF has in their annual budget for Referees Development.
The NFF under the watch of Alhaji Gusau, as I said earlier on has done very well by going a step further to equip the Referees with Communication Gadgets to aid their decision making. But at the last count at least six African Leagues already have VAR in place. I think the NFF and NPFL can do better in this regard.
To spend millions of Naira in restructuring the leagues, or clubs preparing and travelling to honour games, without commissurate investment in refereeing development is tantamount to playing the Ostrich. One single wrong call by a Referee, can have devastating consequences for a single match, a tournament, and indeed a particular club.
Most of what we refer to as bias officiating and corrupt Referees, as far as I am concerned, are actually down to the lack of good training, and retraining of these arbiters. As at today, the emphasis is more on physical fitness, than other essentials the Referee must be endowed with. Agreed physical fitness and mental alertness are key, even in FIFA parlance, gone are those days when the on the field and of the field conducts of elite Referees are monitored. I have been privileged to learn how the DSS and EFCC have waded in, and caught some of these Referees, in the unholy act of match manipulation; but let’s leave that talk for another day.
In essence, for us to get it right and working again, we will need to revamp our recruitment processes, training and promotion, and classification of these match officials; as well as weed out the so-many interlopers hanging on as Assessors and Match Commissioners.
Having made these submissions, football loving Nigerians will want the management of the NPFL and NFF Referees and Development Committee to move quickly to address all of these infractions, by bringing the Referees involved to trial, and punishment if found guilty. The cleansing process has got to be continual, and I will suggest that those that are able to excel be handsomely rewarded with weekly, monthly and annual awards!
