Onochie Anibeze
25 November 2008
Chairman of FC Abuja, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq has described the Nigerian league as "the most corrupt league one can think of."
He said that in spite of television coverage of some matches, the officiating remains substandard largely due to corruption. He further made the following remarks:
"We know when there's human error. We also know when some referees deliberately help some sides to win matches. We've had many cases of brazen corrupt officiating by referees.
The Nigeria League board should do something drastic to check this so that we can have fairly good matches even if we cannot have great matches in our domestic football. A club chairman once called another club chairman to apologise on what his club did when their clubs met. He told him "I'm sorry about the officiating.
It is what almost everybody does. We had to enjoy our own home advantage. Few weeks later same thing happened to me. FC Abuja suffered terrible officiating in one away match and I received some words from a friend from the club, telling me not to be too offended. So, it means that if a Nigerian club does not vote some money to bribe referees and influence certain things that club cannot win the league or even do well.
Our league is the most corrupt any one can think of. It is a shame that even when some matches are on television they still do what they like. That is the power of money. However, there have been cases the referees stood their ground and did well. But on a general note, it is not yet a league that we can bank on to grow our football. Let them do something to check the corruption in our league."
The league board had battles with the FA over the control of referees and FIFA ruled in favour of the FA. But Nigeria Football Federation as they are called now have totally failed in this area.
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