The president of the Nigeria Referees Association (NRA), Tade Azeez, who branded his members as failures, has asked them to improve on their performances to justify the support from the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF).
The NRA boss gave the charge on Tuesday during the badging of Nigeria’s 2022 FIFA referees, assistant referees, beach soccer referees and Fustal referees in Abuja.
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Tade charged the referees to up their game in order to become very relevant and indispensable on the international scene.
“Nigerian referees have failed. The NFF has been doing well to provide all the support that we need, and our FIFA and CAF instructors have also been doing their bit in trying to put us in great physical shape. But we have let them all down and we must turn a new leaf and aim for better performances.”
In the same vein, a member of the NFF Executive Committee and Chairman of the Referees Committee, Alhaji Sharif Rabiu Inuwa, said having only one assistant referee at the 2021 AFCON is a serious indictment on Nigerian referees.
“That we could only have one assistant referee at the AFCON is a big indictment on all of us. We are not doing enough as professionals, and we must take this as a big challenge.
“We are proposing that we have a monitoring team for our referees who officiate internationally so that we can have an accurate assessment of how they perform and conduct themselves,” he said.
A total of 30 referees, made up of 11 referees, 11 assistant referees, 4 beach soccer and 4 Futsal referees received their badges at the occasion.
