The Proprietor of Remo Stars Football Club of Ikenne, Kunle Soname, has accused referees and their officials of killing the Nigerian game, saying that unless drastic action are taken to curb the recklessness of the officials, the country’s domestic football will not rise above mediocrity.
 
Irked by the “wide spread corruption” that ensures that games are now won by the highest bidder, Soname urged the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to flush out the bad eggs in the league system to ensure a level-playing ground for all the teams in the league.
 
Speaking in Ikenne on Wednesday, Soname said the solution to the corruption that has permeated the refereeing department of the league is a total overhaul of the Referees’ Appointment Committee, adding that the time has come to stop the national embarrassment caused by poor officiating in domestic football.
  
Soname, who said that he was speaking not just as a club owner, but also as a stakeholder who has invested heavily in the future and credibility of Nigerian football, described officiating in the NPFL as a critical and systemic problem that has been allowed to persist for far too long. 
  
He said: “For 17 years, not a single Nigerian referee has been selected to officiate at the Africa Cup of Nations, while referees from smaller footballing nations have consistently earned these appointments.
  
“The uncomfortable reason is clear: the standard of officiating in our domestic league is fundamentally compromised.”
  
Using videos of five different games involving different clubs to buttress his point, Soname said   that refereeing errors have directly affected match outcomes. 
 
These, he said, included unawarded penalties, ignored fouls that led to opposition goals, and even a legitimate goal wrongly disallowed in a game between Enugu Rangers and Rivers United.
  
“These are not ‘50-50’ calls,” he said. “They are blatant errors captured on video, decisions that directly change match outcomes and contradict all evidence. Oversight of this broken system falls to the Referees’ Appointment Committee of the Nigeria Football Federation, but the committee has failed in its duty.”
 
He described the chairperson of the Referees Committee, Faith Irabor, as contributing to the malaise by defending poor decisions instead of enforcing accountability. 
 
“By failing to hold officials accountable and providing implausible cover for clear errors, the committee is aiding and abetting the disease destroying our football’s integrity,” he said.
 
Citing Irabor’s justification of the referees’ decision in a match involving Bendel Insurance of Benin and Remo Stars, where a clear foul in the box went unpunished, he said that such actions would demoralise the upright referees, who may be tempted to accept inducements since corrupt arbiters are not punished.