Abbas Jimoh
30 August 2007
Abuja — The fragile peace brokered between the Nigerian Football Association (NFA) and its subsidiary, the Nigeria Football League (NFL), may be short lived as fresh crisis on the appointment of Referees for the much troubled 2007/2008 League season, is brewing between the two bodies.
This disagreement has led to the postponement of the inauguration of the Referees Committee, with only the 5-man Match Commissioners Committee (MCC) inaugurated yesterday in Abuja by the NFL Chairman, Chief Oyuiki Obaseki.
The commencement of the league, earlier scheduled for August 18 was shifted to September 1, after a marathon meeting brokered by Director General of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Amos Adamu.
A visibly angry Obaseki said that the Referee Committee was not inaugurated due to the insistence of the NFA to appoint referees for the league matches.
"The Referee's Committee can not be inaugurated now because the NFA want to appoint referees, but I will never allow that, it is my game and I am the one paying, if anyone want confusion in Nigerian football, we are ready for them," Obaseki said.
He said: "I have been keeping quiet because I don't want to rock the boat; the NFA can recruit train and discipline referees, but can not appoint them to matches when we are the one paying the indemnities, accommodating and transporting them, those bent on causing confusion should learn from the Ethiopia's experience."
He said that the appointment of referees is being done by the league body in Europe and other places, showing an English Football Association Handbook where appointment of referees is being done by the league body.
"The Premier League will kick off on Saturday, September 1st and run for 38 weeks while the Division one will commence on September 13 for 30 weeks," Obaseki said, while inaugurating the MCC headed by Mr. M. A. Kadiri; and Richard Jideaka, Mrs. Edith Nwakire, Alhaji Sani Mohammed and Prof. Onje Gye-Wado as members.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2007 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
