Referees Vow To Stop Poor Officiating
The newly elected Secretary-General of Nigeria Football Referees Association (NRA), Prince Moruf Oyekunle Oluwa, has mapped out plans to stop bribery, incentives and gratuity giving to referees by home teams.
During a press briefing in Abuja, Oluwa said, “the new executives of NRA have mapped out plans to make the association better like their counterparts all over Africa as well as in Europe.”
He said the association needs sponsors for their programmes, trains its men in order to meet up with current trend in refereeing all over the world.
According to him, referees serve the Nigeria Football Federation and Nigeria League Board yet there is no office for them, adding that their offices are their various cars where they keep their files.
Oluwa appealed to the National Sports Commission, NSC and the NFF to kindly create an office for them at the National Stadium or elsewhere to enable them work effectively.
“The association is tired of bad refereeing and is willing to put a stop to it. In fact, we need one of the unused offices at National Stadium, Abuja.
“Due to poor funding, our referees are easily bought over by managers of host teams to officiate matches in their favour. But in a situation where a referee arrive a match venue, lodges into a hotel and the following morning proceeds to the match venue to officiate, such referee can never be biased as he is self-sufficient.
“However, when a referee left Calabar by road to officiate a match in Zamfara, got  there  late the next morning and very hungry . The host team decided to check him into a hotel, get food for him and give him money to take him back home after the match. He is a human, he can be influenced.
“After such hospitality, the referee would be biased and would want to perform to the satisfaction of the host team.That’s the problem which the new executives led by Alhaji Ahmed Maude wish to solve.
“We promised to sanitise and clean up the mess in the system because we wish to see Nigerian referees in the next World Cup as well as that of CAF and FIFA U-19, U-20, and U-23 competitions.
“We appeal to Nigerians and corporate bodies to donate furnitures as well as an office to Nigeria Referees Association to enable us plan well for our referees in a conducive environment.
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