Referees are some of the most vilified professionals globally. Many clubs and their fans in Nigeria often find an easy culprit in the referee for their clubs’ woes. It partly explains why they are rated so poorly, and increasingly neglected internationally, GOWON AKPODONOR reports.

World over, high-quality officiating is fundamental to the integrity, flow, and commercial success of a football league. In most major league competitions, high-quality officiating extends beyond just making correct decisions; it ensures fair competition, maintains player safety, and protects the league’s credibility.

Apart from reducing errors in critical situations, such as penalties, red cards, and offside situations, which directly affect match outcomes and ensure the league table reflects team performance rather than officiating mistakes, high-quality referees help in managing external pressures, such as home crowd influence, leading to more impartial officiating. These referees are protected by a system that values their input into the success of the league or other competitions.

However, in Nigeria, things are not the same as in other places. The Nigerian referee is among the most endangered professionals in the country, with football fans often treating them as easy targets to vent their frustrations.

The country’s football history is replete with accounts of referees being manhandled by fans and club officials in the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) and other lower leagues. While some survive with scars, some die from these ugly ordeals.

Many stakeholders, rightly or wrongly, accuse referees of betraying their oath to be fair to all and instead selling games to those willing to pay the highest prices. Others believe that, rather than the alleged corruption, some of these referees are ill-trained and poorly equipped for the job they are paid to do.

These stakeholders point to more than 17 years of neglect of Nigerian referees by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and FIFA when selecting officials for the Africa Cup of Nations and the World Cup, respectively.

To them, a well-officiated, professional-looking league is more attractive to sponsors, broadcasters, and fans, which directly impacts revenue.

Recently, the Proprietor of Remo Stars Football Club of Ikenne, Kunle Soname, accused referees of killing the game, saying that unless drastic actions are taken to curb the recklessness of match officials, the country’s domestic football will not rise above mediocrity.

Soname, who said 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 persisted 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,” Soname stated.

But there are yet those who believe that the Nigerian referee is unjustly crucified by clubs who fail to prepare their teams for games. To these stakeholders, the referee is as good as the prevailing environment and therefore should not be blamed for the clubs’ failures to do their homework properly.

There are also instances in which these referees escape death by the whisker at the hands of fans and team officials for simply doing their jobs.

A couple of years ago, Patience Nweke from Imo State slumped into a coma after she was allegedly assaulted and dehumanised by players and fans of J. Atete FC for allegedly aiding their home defeat by Ekiti United in a second division game.

Last season, centre referee Mohammed Tuta and his assistants Bem Japhet, Shehu Isah, and Alfa Sadiq escaped being lynched by irate Kano fans during a Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) match between Kano Pillars and Shooting Stars of Ibadan, which ended in a 1-1 draw.

Japhet’s offence was that he allegedly allowed the visitors to earn a late draw.
T
he recurrence of such violent outbreaks has raised serious questions about safety and crowd management in the NPFL.

Indeed, many are asking, “Is the Nigerian referee as bad as he has been painted? Is the referee well-trained, fully equipped and given enough protection to carry out his duties without fear or favour?’ Answers to these are as varied as those posing the questions.

A former Director General of the Delta Sports Commission, Victor Onogagamue, is disturbed about the referees’ challenge in the Nigerian league.

“This matter is very disturbing to all of us in the nation’s sporting ecosystem,” Onogagamue, a former National Secretary of the Handball Federation of Nigeria, said.

“Bad officiating due to compromise, corruption and lack of capacity to do the needful by our referees has almost killed our fledgling football leagues in the last two decades. It is a serious issue, which stakeholders must tackle frontally to improve the fortunes of our football industry and sports generally. Our referees must be carefully profiled, scrutinised, punished, or properly sanctioned to serve as a deterrent to offenders,” Onogagamue stated.

But the chairman of the Referees Committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Faith Irabor, counters the allegations against referees. She says branding Nigerian referees as “killers” of the nation’s league is unfair.

While reacting to Soname’s allegation, Irabor said: “I feel so sad that Kunle Soname is accusing Nigerian referees of killing the Nigerian league. I don’t like to react to every issue, but I must say that Kunle Soname is wrong in his accusation.

“Two seasons ago, when his club, Remo Stars, finished second in the league, Nigerian referees were good. Remo Stars represented Nigeria in the CAF competition and were beaten at home. They couldn’t even make any appreciable impact. Were the referees who officiated in the CAF competition Nigerians?

“Again, his club, Remo Stars, won the league last year. The referees were the best then. Remo Stars failed woefully in this year’s CAF Champions League, even losing 5-1 at home in Abeokuta. Were the match officials Nigerian referees? One thing I want people like Kunle Soname to understand is that you can’t give what you don’t have.

“Soon, a club like Rivers United FC, which just crashed out of the CAF Champions League, will start to blame Nigerian referees. I feel so sad that whenever a club is performing badly in the Nigerian League, all the blame is directed at referees. It is sad.”

Irabor, who is the first woman to lead Nigerian referees, however, alleged that the press has been consistently “damaging the reputation” of Nigerian referees before the international community.

“We saw what happened at the recently concluded AFCON in Morocco and the performance of some of the referees. Were they Nigerian referees? How do Nigerians expect CAF or FIFA to look in the direction of our referees when some of our journalists have already sentenced them to death even before trials? We should change our attitude towards the referees. They are human beings like any other person,” Irabor stated.

The Nigerian Referees Association (NRA) shares Irabor’s views, insisting that it is unfair to blame referees for the league’s woes when those expected to provide an enabling environment for the league to thrive are failing in their responsibility.

The PRO of the NRA, Kelechi Mejuobi, said: “If stakeholders say that referees are compromised, the question should be ‘who compromised them?’ It’s a two-way thing; for someone to be compromised, somebody must be offering something.

“Most of these referees are well-trained professionals, with good jobs off the field. We have medical doctors, engineers, lawyers and people from different professions who are referees.”

A former Super Eagles and Flying Eagles’ star, Paul Okoku, agrees that condemning referees alone does not tell the full story. “There is a persistent assumption that referees should publicly explain their challenges. In reality, many operate under difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions. Match officials often face intimidation, pressure from club interests, and threats to personal safety. In some cases, these pressures extend beyond the stadium. In such an environment, neutrality becomes risky. Silence, for many referees, is not an admission of guilt, but an act of self-preservation.

He said that Nigeria’s prolonged absence from elite refereeing appointments reflects accumulated evaluations over time.

Okoku said that referees cannot function independently in an environment that neither protects nor insulates them. So, “the obligation lies with football administrators, league organisers, referee appointment and disciplinary bodies, and security agencies to ensure that match officials can operate without intimidation or undue influence. Without institutional backing, individual integrity becomes difficult to sustain, regardless of personal character.”

Okoku added: “Until such systems are firmly in place, criticism of referees will persist, international neglect will continue, and the league’s credibility will remain fragile.”