The attack on NPFL referee

ALREADY battling an image problem, the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) is unlikely to win over new friends following the ugly incident which marred the conclusion of a match day 18 game in the ongoing league season between Heartland of Owerri and defending champions Plateau United. The match in question had ended in a 1-1 draw, with the visitors snatching a crucial equalising goal in added time. Evidently, this did not go down well with the supporters of the home team, who decided to take out their anger on referee Yusuf Garba, his assistants and the Plateau United coaching and management team. The referee was so severely beaten that he reportedly lost consciousness and had to be rushed to the hospital.

Unfortunately, incidents such as this have  become par for the course in matches across the Nigerian league. In the past two years alone, matches involving Abia Warriors, Sunshine Stars of Akure, Ranchers Bees, Kwara United, Niger Tornadoes and IfeanyiUbah FC have been disrupted by crowd violence, including throwing of objects into the field of play, pitch invasion and attacks on match officials. For the NPFL, these incidents have added insult to injury and battered an already damaged reputation.

To its credit, however, the League Management Company (LMC), which is responsible for the organisation and promotion of the league, has always acted with dispatch in reviewing such incidents and meting out appropriate punishments to the identified culprits. For instance, following the match day 18 incident, it ordered Heartland to play its next three home matches behind closed doors and suspended the team’s manager, ex-Olympian Mobi Oparaku, from all NPFL activities for the next ten matches. LMC also imposed various fines on Heartland, including a compensation of N1.25 million to be paid to the match officials.

While we condemn the unprovoked attack on the match officials and commend the LMC for its prompt response, we worry that the problem with Nigerian football goes deeper. The sad fact is that Nigerian football is a pale shadow of its former glorious self when the league was buoyant and ultra-competitive and fans could look forward to a weekend of pure artistry and entertainment. Back then, the Nigerian league was the favoured destination of established and aspiring stars from different parts of the West African sub-region and beyond, and teams like Enugu Rangers, IICC Shooting Stars, Raccah Rovers of Kano, Stationery Stores and Leventis FC, regularly put continental opposition to the sword. Today, the NPFL is effectively a feeder league to all manner of ‘foreign’ teams.

Unsurprisingly, the brain drain from Nigerian football parallels the brain drain from Nigerian universities. A 2013 report by the London Guardian newspaper provided ample documentation of the malaise facing Nigerian football, including the unflattering fact that it is the one league where a home team is more or less guaranteed victory, and a visiting team defeat. It is also, apparently, the only league in which a single match is capable of producing a world record 79 goals, as happened when Plateau United thrashed Akurba FC by that score in 2013!

Noted The Guardian: “Ten of the league’s 20 teams went through the whole season unbeaten at home, while no team won more than three away matches in the entire campaign. The runners-up, Enyimba, did not even concede a goal at home, winning 17 and drawing two of their 19 home games while winning just once away. The disparity between Gombe United’s home and away form is even more striking: they managed to win 18 and draw one of their 19 home games, scoring an average of more than two goals per game, but away they lost every match, managing a grand total of four goals in 19 games. What is going on?”

What is going on is that Nigerian football has completely lost its way, and attacks on game officials such as the one witnessed recently are just a tip of the iceberg. It will take a while before the league recaptures its erstwhile luster, and for that to happen, a lot will have to change, and not just on the field of play.