6th June, 2013
Akwa United coach, Justin Tenger is confused over the referee’s decision to discontinue the side’s mid-week Nigeria Professional Football League, NPFL, encounter against Warri Wolves at the Uyo Township Stadium.
The first half of the encounter ended smoothly with the home side up by two goals but the match officials failed to come back to the pitch to kick start the second half which led to the abandonment of the game.
Unconfirmed reports said some fans attacked the referees in their locker room.
Tenger described the match officials’ behaviour as the strangest incident he has witnessed in his entire football career.
“The incident is strange and unfortunate; I’ve never witnessed such strange occurrence in my entire career where referees will decide to discontinue a game after the first half has been concluded.
“We were leading 2-0 in the first 45 minutes and had looked forward to scoring more goals in the second half because we were clearly the dominant side in the encounter.
“We were not even given the privilege to know why the match was discontinued. We’re waiting to know how the league body will judge the case.
“The faintest information we picked up was that the referee was hit by some fans in the dressing room.
“We couldn’t establish which fans actually hit the referee. Of course, our fans have no business to attack the referee while their side are winning comfortably.
“This is a sad happening as we would have picked three points on the field of play to improve our fortune on the log,” said the former Niger Tornadoes coach to supersport.com.