At the risk of sounding immodest, I want to start this column by stating that I was a member of the Interim League Management (ILM) board that metamorphosed into the Nigeria Professional League (NPL) board. This concept was meant to jumpstart a new dawn in the domestic game. It has, however, several nomenclatures, such as NPL, NFL, NPFL etc, with the same objectives.
I rejected the call to aspire into the new board after the interim body’s term lapsed, because I was gainfully employed. I also felt that I didn’t need to be a member of the NFL to contribute to the growth of the game at any level. As a sports journalist, I cover all the sports. So, there wasn’t anything special with the NFL appointment, especially when some powerful forces were eager to stop the pioneer chairman, Oyuiki Jackson Obaseki, from returning to the new board.
Obaseki had done well during the interim tenure and needed to continue instead of having someone who will spend the first two years asking questions. Indeed, those who wanted Obaseki out couldn’t stand his guts. He was also an unsparing administrator when it comes to applying the rules.
For several hours, Obaseki, in his royal attire was waiting for the Edo State government’s approval to remain on the league board when he had been moved up to a patron, with the electoral body headed by Sani Toro insisting that they needed a letter of clarification from the Edo State government for him to run for the elections, even as he was seemingly the only candidate. I ensured that the approval came from the former Edo State governor, Lucky Igbinedion. The rest is history, but Obaseki was shocked at my role in his return. Need I waste space to list Obaseki’s achievements? I ask the current league management board, when they last visited Obaseki? Should such a man be abandoned to his fate?
Today’s piece isn’t about this writer. Nor is it about how Obaseki performed. It is about the show of shame in Saturday’s NPFL game between Kano Pillars and Ifeanyiubah FC of Nnewi inside the Sani Abacha stadium in the Pyramid City. I must emphasise here that this piece isn’t one to lambast the Shehu Dikko-led League Management Company (LCM). Rather, I want the body to use my posers to correct some of the mistakes noticed in the two instances where there were crises. This won’t deride the proprietor of the club, who has vowed not to appeal the decisions taken against his team. That is the spirit.
Reports from Kano confirmed that the visitors’ team manager ordered his boys out of the field of play for alleged biased officiating by the referee (Funso Ajayi from Oyo State). The team manager defied pleas by top government officials who watched the game, including the Kano State Governor, Umaru Ganduje, chairman of the LMC Shehu Dikko et al.
I was excited reading one report which stated that Dikko called the owner of the club to inter vene in the impasse. Some reports suggested that his move was unsuccessful. Did Dikko call Ifeanyubah FC’s proprietor? If yes, what did he say? Was he the one who ordered the boys back to the field of play? Most of the reports revealed that the referee, a woman, called off the game after waiting for the mandatory 15 minutes.
My hunch tells me that those players and their officials wanted to embarrass the woman. I may be wrong. But another case of fans’ invasion of the pitch at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, Enugu to harass another woman referee buttresses my opinion that these beasts wanted to undermine these women referees.
I have seen games handled perfectly by women. Those who saw the Kano mayhem didn’t rebuke the referee. Those who were in Enugu didn’t too? These urchins must face the law. The games were recorded, which presupposes that it will be easy to identify, arrest and prosecute the ringleaders of such devilish acts to serve as a deterrent to others who may wish to behave like them.
Interestingly, there have been several reports in the past berating Ifeanyiubah FC’s officials and their chieftains for their conduct during matches. I recall former NFF Secretary General Bolaji Ojo-Oba condemning the presence of gun wielding security operatives inside the dressing room of the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos, last year at half time duirng the Nigeria FA Cup final between Ifeanyiubah FC and Nasarawa FC. Ojo-Oba was taken aback by their presence, which he traced to one of the proprietors. I don’t think it happens anywhere in the world that club owners would invade the dressing room at half-time.
I have waited for the NFF to react to Ojo-Oba’s statements; no word, not even a rebuttal of Ojo-Oba’s statement. Why will Ojo-Oba lie? He is a FIFA and CAF recognised match commissioner. He knows his onions. So, if he spoke publicly in that manner, something ought to have been done. Or are the NFF chiefs waiting until the next edition?
The team manager of Shooting Stars Sports (3SC) Ibadan, Rasheed Balogun, was shown lying, down dazed on the floor, following an encounter with some operatives, who Balogun alleged came with IfeanyiUbah FC for a league game last year. Let me not bore you with the fracas that ensued during the home game between IfeanyiUbah and relegated Heartland FC of Owerri, where the proprietor allegedly slapped Mikel Obi’s elder brother, Ebele, who was Heartland’s goalkeeper in the game in Nnewi. The billionaire wrote a letter of apology and an undertaking to be a good ambassador of the NPFL. Ifeanyi Ubah was fined N2.5 million and banned from 10 Premier League matches.
The background to the series of disturbances associated with IfeanyiUbah’s visits to match venues is necessary to appreciate the kind of sanctions slammed on the club by the NPFL body. But does the NPFL have the right to do what they did? Will this not translate to being a judge in one’s matter, considering the fact that all the decisions affected the club and the referee, with LMC not punished for failure of leadership?
If the referee was not good, who picked her for the game? Shouldn’t we know the criteria for picking match referees? Isn’t it a shame that the LMC doesn’t know its best match officials? How could such ineptitude on the part of the leadership happen in the first games in Kano and Enugu? Who were the two match commissioners? Why have they not been punished? Nothing has been said about their two reports. What did they advise the LMC to do?
Interestingly, the Nigeria Referees Association (NRA), the body tasked with the duty of punishing erring members, has applauded their member for the correct interpretation of the rules of the game. This buttresses my argument that the LMC should have allowed the appropriate body to perform its functions in meting out punishments of such magnitude.
NRA’s President, Tade Azeez, in a statement, revealed that the action of the referee (Kano Pillars vs IfeanyiUbah) with regards to the duration/time of each half is within the ambit of the laws of the game, citing Law 7 – the duration of the game.
Gbam, like my daughter will say. The NRA president appealed to the relevant bodies to enlighten the clubs, their officials, fans and players about the laws of the game. This is the crux of what happened in Kano and Enugu. The LMC must tell us what they learned from their sojourn in Spain, if they didn’t organise such a course for the people listed by the NRA president. I don’t want to sound pessimistic. But it must be stressed here that the LMC must educate club officials and coaches during pre-match meetings on how they must conduct themselves before, during and after matches.
Many club officials and coaches incite the fans with their sideline theatrics, which most times is not listed as the catalyst when the crisis begins. Perhaps, those televising the games should focus the cameras on these officials’ theatrics. Such visuals could be used to punish the erring people, even if there wasn’t any crisis during and after the game. Technical issues are meant for the experts to interpret. Indeed the referee couldn’t have been punished on matters concerning the game’s timing because the rules specifically state that the sole judge of time in a game is the centre referee. Who cares about the timing of those at the stands? How many of them stopped their timing mechanisms for wasted periods in the game?
With the Kano State governor present in the stadium, one assumes that there wasn’t any problem with security. I must commend the operatives for managing the crisis. It isn’t easy to persuade fans to leave the stadium in a stalemated game. Perhaps, it was easy since the home team won the game technically.
My worry is that LMC, in punishing for the harassment of the female referee after the game in Enugu, did nothing to fish out the culprits who were captured by the cameras. We must commend the policemen who were inside the stadium in Enugu for the perfect job. The LMC should submit the visuals of the Enugu game to the police to search for those yobos. They are not spirits. They must be taught some lessons in being civil. What happened last weekend in Enugu is a bad testimonial for the league, if we truly want Nigerians to throng the stadia for games.
I’m also worried that the presence of the LMC chairman at the venue couldn’t restore order at the pitch, which makes it imperative for Dikko to tell us what he did in Kano to prevent the show-of-shame. I had thought that his presence could have made the game end. Dikko, what did Ifeanyi Ubah tell you?
Dikko, Rangers want to appeal the decisions taken by your body. Rangers’ management members have revealed that they have visuals showing the invasion of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium’s pitch by fans’ of the opposing team. Interesting, isn’t it Dikko? If Rangers’ officials present this visual showing the opposition’s fans dressed in their team’s colours, what will happen to the decisions taken? Reversed? Will that not be laughable? We wait.
