Like many aspects of Nigeria’s national life, corrupt practices are burrowing deep in the sports sector, where some referees are willing tools in the hands of compromised club officials and supporters. The craze to win at all costs has also lowered the integrity quotient of the country’s football league necessitating a thorough cleansing of the system, which stakeholders told CHRISTIAN OKPARA could be done through diverse means, including the deployment of technology, comprehensive training for referees, focusing on rules and practical match situations, severe sanctions including straight red cards for erring officials, improved condition of service, as well as educating supporters on new rules governing the sport. 

Saturday, June 25, 2022, started like any other workday for football referee, Patience Nweke, as the Imo State-born female referee was listed as one of the arbiters in the country’s second-tier football league competition, the Nigerian National League (NNL).

Consequently, she prepared to take charge of the match between J. Atete FC and Ekiti United, at Utu Jeremi Stadium, in Ughelli Local Council of Delta State.

On the fateful day, Nweke had no admonition that a near-death experience awaited her, as she observed all her pre-match routines, and headed to the stadium, where an expectant crowd of J. Atete supporters were gathered, hoping that their darling team would get the desired win that would take them closer to promotion to the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL).

Contrary to expectations, Ekiti United put up a stellar performance that made J. Atete look ordinary, and their supporters bewildered. Not only that, but the visitors also scored early and held on to the lead till the end of the encounter.

Incensed by the outcome of the game, supporters of the home side joined some errant players to their spleen on a hapless Nweke for superintending the defeat of their darling team.

For the first time in a job that she had been on for over two years, Nweke was beaten to a pulp by an irate mob, and she fell into a coma. She was also inflicted with several cuts and a head injury.

Reports from the scene of the incident said that police officers inside the stadium tried to save the referee, but they were easily overpowered by the blood-thirsty fans, who accused Nigerian referees of being behind their inability to gain the required points for promotion to the elite league.

Another referee, Sebastine Onwe, from Ebonyi State, was luckier than Nweke as he was promptly rescued from the claws of aggrieved fans during the Ebonyi State Governor’s Cup final, late last year, at the Abakiliki Township Stadium.

Like Nweke, Onwe was accused of facilitating the Ebonyi Council’s 2-1 victory over Ishielu Council in the final game, by angry players and supporters of the latter council.

The mob, therefore, swooped on the referee after the match, chasing him all over the stadium as he ran for his dear life,

According to reports, Ebonyi State Governor, Francis Nwifuru, personally intervened in rescuing the referee from the irate mob, which had overpowered security operatives.

Over the years, Nigerian referees have had a no-love-lost relationship with football clubs and their supporters, some of whom believe that the umpires bend the rules to favour the highest bidder.

Not just a football match
In 2022, a former chairman of Wikki Tourists FC of Bauchi, Auwalu Baba Jada, was suspended from all football-related activities by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) following his claim in a viral video that he could help any team fix matches at the right price.

In the video, the football administrator boasted of how he had helped some clubs fix matches in the 2022 Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) season. He also admitted that the defunct MFM of Lagos was the only club he could not manipulate because he had no friends there.

Jada equally listed clubs that he helped in the 2022 season to earn good results with the aid of compromised referees, claiming that a good result in any game was just a call away.

As the troubling development festers, the question that many are asking is: “Do referees set out to do dirty jobs for teams? Why would an official pledge to ensure that teams play by the rules, only for the same official to work towards breaching the same rules?

A former media officer of the defunct Dolphins Football Club of Port Harcourt, China Acheru, while admitting the existence of bad eggs in the system, added that clubs with good teams and coaches don’t think about bribing referees because they know that they have squads that are capable of winning games for them.

He added, however, that certain conditions make some teams look for unorthodox ways of getting desired results.
Acheru gave an instance where supporters of Sharks FC approached the management of his club to allow the sister club of Dolphins FC (Sharks FC) to beat Dolphins at their home ground to enable them to avoid relegation to the lower division.

“Dolphins refused and we played a 1-1 draw at home; we went to their home ground and played goalless. That season Sharks were relegated to the lower league. After, we reached an agreement that we would do whatever is necessary to any of the teams in need of points either to escape relegation or win the league.”

Acheru, who denied ever being involved in compromising referees, however, recalled a certain incident involving his club and Enyimba of Aba, in Kaduna.
“There was one incident in 2004 where referees in the game between Dolphins and Gabros were assaulted by our supporters, which led to our team being banished to Kaduna.

“In Kaduna, we played Rangers, Julius Berger and Enyimba. We beat Rangers and Julius Berger, but the Enyimba game was a must-win game because our 10-point lead had been cut down to four. That game ended in a draw, but there was no violence.

“What I heard in that game was that despite Dolphins’ policing of the referees to ensure that Enyimba officials didn’t get to them, Enyimba still managed to ‘bribe’ them with some dollars that forced the referees to open up the game. It ended in a draw.”

He said that Nigerian referees during his time at Dolphins were constantly under pressure by corrupt club officials, who preferred to bribe match officials than spend their budgets on raising good teams, adding, however, that the situation has improved tremendously with teams now able to win away matches without bribing anybody.

Some stakeholders in the league agree with Acheru that unlike in previous seasons, officiating of games has been commendable with teams winning away matches without incidents of crowd violence. They, however, noted that the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and the league bodies need to do more to eradicate corruption among match officials completely.

Don’t blame the umpire!
Apparently, the Nigeria Referees Association (NRA) also shares this view as it recently summoned many match officials to face the hearing committee following their questionable officiating this season.
Recently, the NPFL Referees Committee suspended three referees from further officiating in the competition in line with its avowed determination to cleanse the league of malfeasance.

The suspended referees are Ndubuisi Ukah (Imo), Otuwho Morrison (Delta), and Faro Abdulrahman (Lagos).

The NRA boss, Faith Irabor, explained that the referees were summoned to explain certain decisions that they took, to enable the NRA to see where they went wrong in the course of their duties.

“We will play video clips of the matches where these 11 referees were involved to see if their actions were deliberate or not. It will enable us to know if those mistakes were of the head, and not of the mind by the referees. Nobody is above mistake, but there are certain actions that you take as a referee that are not justifiable. That is what I mean by “of the head, and not of the mind,” Irabor added.

While many stakeholders blame the Nigerian referee for most of the ills of the Nigerian league, NRA’s Public Relations Officer, Kelechi Mejuobi, said most of the people painting referees black are ignorant of the situation of things in Nigerian football.

He dismissed the claim that Nigerian referees are constantly ignored by FIFA and CAF in the appointment of officials for international games.

Mejuobi said: “Those that make these claims are not properly furnished with the exploits of Nigerian referees on the international scene or are not following the progress of the NRA.”

He continued: “In the first place, FIFA and CAF recognise and appoint Nigerian referees for their matches. You can say that it is only in this edition of the AFCON that no referee from Nigeria was listed. In the previous ones, Nigerian referees showed presence as they were called up for duty.

“For instance, at the last AFCON, Samuel Pwadutakam of Adamawa State was chosen as an assistant referee, same for Abel Baba of Kogi State.

“For the avoidance of doubt, Nigerian referees have been involved in the various CAF and FIFA matches. However, suffice it to say that CAF and FIFA haven’t come to the public, or told anyone in the media through any publication that referees from Nigeria are being ignored for the mistaken belief that they are adjudged as not good enough for such competitions… it is a very wrong and unfair assertion, which has no proof.

“In the previous editions, Nigeria had representatives, but this time the elite referees had slight challenges and couldn’t make it,” he added.

He said the Nigerian referee has no constraints in the discharge of his duties, adding that the NRA and the NFF are working in concert to ensure that noticeable flaws in the system are corrected.

According to Mejuobi: “The NRA as a body has exploited and is still using everything in its Pandora’s box to improve refereeing in Nigeria. Apart from embarking on a strategic partnership with the NFF, football organising bodies like the NPFL, NNL, Women’s League, and the Nationwide League are in partnership with the NRA for the good of refereeing.

“With the support of the NFF, the NRA backs members to participate in pre-season medical and physical fitness tests and seminars. Similar exercises are repeated for premier league referees in the mid-season.

“The pre-season programmes are the highest point of training for NRA members. Meanwhile, we hold quarterly fitness test programs for international referees from Nigeria, and more importantly, the high-profile Member Association (MA) Courses are held yearly, where international instructors, work with local instructors to mould the referees for greater challenges.”

Mejuobi insisted that stakeholders have roles to play in the growth of refereeing in the country, including collaborating with the NFF and the NRA to educate the public on laws that govern the game, the operations of referees, and refereeing.

Like Mejuobi, the Lagos State Referees Association Secretary, Dele Atoun, described the Nigerian referee as one of the most maligned professionals in the country, saying that even when they do the right things, some football fans still try to blame them for the ills besetting the game.

He said even when CAF and FIFA overlooked Nigerian referees in some competitions, the country’s officials have been featuring in major international championships, except the FIFA World Cup.

“FIFA and CAF have not told anybody that they don’t use Nigerian referees because they are not good. There are a limited number of officials for every competition, and not everybody can be in a particular competition. We have so many FIFA-badged referees, who would not have been so certified if they were not found good enough.”

He lamented that people after appraising a couple of happenings in the country’s league and other competitions end up tarring indigenous referees as corrupt, adding that given adequate security, Nigerian referees perform as well as their counterparts across the world.

“Many Nigerian matches are played under unsafe conditions with the referee a lone figure at the mercy of fans. Some of the policemen you see at match venues are supporters of some of these clubs, and they sometimes threaten the referee if their clubs do not win.

“I have been a victim of such harassment from uniformed men on several occasions. A policeman once threatened to deal with me when his club was 2-0 down at home, but I stood my ground.

“Another issue is that the modern referee needs technological assistance because the game has moved on. The referee is human and cannot see everything that is happening on the pitch. Goalmouth technology and VAR, which are in use in other places, are not here yet. When a referee in England makes a mistake, he is called back by VAR to correct that mistake. But when a Nigerian referee makes a mistake, he is only shown the mistake during the review, which is usually done days after the game.

“We recently went on a VAR training and we found it hard to cope with the equipment because some of us were not familiar with the system. Referees in countries that have already been using new technologies have an advantage over Nigerians who have not handled such things before.”

Poor logistics is another issue Atoun blames for some of the poor performances noticed in the system.
According to him, the Nigerian situation is such that referees sometimes travel for two days to get to a match venue “and when they arrive on game day, you cannot expect him to be at his utmost best.”

He called on the NFF and the league bodies to try to move with time, saying that modern-day football umpire needs technology to function well.
“To get the best out of the referee, he should be helped to do his job well. Club officials have a big role to play in getting the best out of the referees, by educating their supporters on the rules of the game.

“Unfortunately, most of the attacks on referees are orchestrated by club officials, who want to win at all costs. Some officials want to win all their home games even when they have poor teams. When things are not going their way, they incite the fans to attack the referee.

“No referee in Europe can function in our system because of the way we operate. I once arrived at the venue of a game in Taraba State, by road, an hour before the match. Can a European or North African referee function in such a situation? They cannot…I will beat my chest and say that Nigerian referees are among the best in the world,” he said.

Transparency is key
But despite the latest development, some club officials still claim that the average Nigerian referee can only do well when he knows that all eyes are on him, adding that the recent live coverage of matches by StarTimes has reduced corruption.

They further added that all these notwithstanding, some clubs still find ways of ensuring that their games are not televised because they want to manipulate the system.

Speaking just before his club, Sunshine Stars, took on Niger Tornadoes of Minna in an NPFL game on January 13, 2024, Sunshine Stars Coach, Edith Agoye, accused StarTimes of failing to broadcast the South West derby involving his team and Remo Stars, and in the process, allowed the Ikenne-based Remo Stars to adopt a win-at-all cost method to take the game.

He said: “We are not happy that StarTimes was not in Ikenne to witness how some teams won at all costs when we played the South-West derby against Remo Stars. Some of these things that are going on in the league have a way of demoralising teams and players. But if games are on television, the whole world will see what happens at match venues, and perhaps deter referees and corrupt officials from bringing the game to disrepute.”

The Chairman of Akwa United FC of Uyo, Elder Paul Bassey, also agrees that putting the game on television has made the league better, adding, however, that there is still room for improvement.

Bassey picked the mode of appointing match officials as one area that needs to be addressed, adding that certain conditions make it impossible for referees to give their best during games.

“In 15 matches, I have had referees from Kano State. There was a match that the referee arrived on the eve of the game. If I have a game against Abia Warriors, why should we have a referee from Kano State instead of the South-West?

“Officiating in the Nigerian league is getting better, especially when it involves those FIFA-badged referees, who are doing everything possible to defend their badges. Now, if you have a good team, you can go anywhere and win unlike before. But it could be better.”

Former Obanta United of Ijebu Ode midfielder, Segun Adebowale, alleged that some referees are corrupt, and go all out to help clubs that bribe them to win matches.

He added, however, that there are many decent officials, who do their jobs according to the laws of the game, no matter the clubs involved.
Describing an incident that happened during his time in the 1990s, Adebowale said a certain female referee, who was known for being at the beck and call of some corrupt football officials, was always ready to do anything for these clubs to win.

“People dreaded to see her officiate their games, especially when they played against a certain South-West team. Nothing happened to her until she retired because she was protected by top officials of the game.

“But there were also many others, who would not bend the rules to satisfy anybody even if you point guns to their heads. There were many such referees in the league, and I believe that the situation is even better now with better training and availability of modern tools of the trade.”

He said the problem between clubs’ supporters and referees is caused mainly by poor understanding of the rules of the game.

“The rules are constantly changing, and when the referees apply the new rules, some fans do not understand what is happening. So, things would get better when the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and clubs start educating fans on every new rule of the game.

“I remember when FIFA introduced the law that barred goalkeepers from handling back passes from their players, it caused so much confusion because people interpreted it differently. It took time before fans understood what a back pass was, and when the ball hit a player and got to his goalkeeper.

“Again, some mistakes are purely human errors and cannot be attributed to corruption, or poor understanding of the game. After all, a renowned British referee committed a heavy blunder at the 2006 World Cup when he issued two yellow cards to a player and still did not send him off. It took the intervention of other officials before he realized his mistake.

“Some fans want their teams to win at all costs and when things do not go their way, they descend on the referees. A typical example is what happened in Turkey recently when a club president entered the field and attacked a referee, landing the man in the hospital.

“The difference between Nigeria and Turkey is that Turkish referees refused to officiate in matches, while the league was suspended. The club president was arrested and prosecuted according to their laws.

“In Nigeria, the man would have gone free with his club banished to another city and asked to play behind closed doors. Until hooligans who attack referees are dealt with according to the law, such incidents would continue to happen,” he said.

Coach Uni Dan Kakwi, an assistant trainer and videographer with Plateau United, said that corruption would continue to thrive in the league until the bad referees in the system are kicked out of the game.

According to Kakwi, there is a need to sanitise the system and boost football development in Nigeria through digital forensic phone checks, which could be done unnoticed by referees through telephone providers.

“Conducting forensic digital phone checks on football referees may be justified to ensure integrity and fair play. It could reveal communication between parties, evidence of bribery, or attempts to manipulate match outcomes.

“Transparency through digital checks can enhance public trust in the sport, demonstrating a commitment to accountability and fairness, and reducing suspicions of biased officiating.”

To enhance officiating in the game, Kakwi said that managers of the game should invest in comprehensive training programmes for referees, focusing on both the rules of the game and practical match situations.