Whose benefit; who is to blame?
tell us if violence is part of the sponsorship deal. They know that our league adds nothing to the image of their brands; otherwise, they would have called the league management board to order or withdrawn their sponsorship if hooliganism cannot be checked.”
To eradicate hooliganism due to bad officiating and match fixing, Adelabu wants clubs’ management to sack any manager who demands money for such exercises. “I am so surprised that despite the high level of commitment to English Premiership and other leagues across the world by our football managers and administrators, they have never learnt anything from these leagues to help transform our own. For how long are we going to circle around this mountain of mediocrity?”
Like every other noble profession, the act of being a referee, the football arbiter, that has the final say in any match, comes with its benefits and bad sides in Nigeria. They are the biggest targets at league venues across the country.
There was an infamous case several years ago when a referee in the Nigerian league, Dogo Yabilsu awarded a penalty to Sharks FC of Port Harcourt against Kwara United, and fans invaded the pitch. Yabilsu, a colonel in the army, took out his service pistol and chased the fans off the pitch for play to continue. But Sharks were still afraid of what would happen if they scored, so their player deliberately missed the spot kick. Edema Fuludu was part of the Clemens Westerhof’s Super Eagles squad that conquered Africa at Tunisia ’94 Nations Cup. He featured for various clubs in the Nigerian league, including New Nigerian Bank of Benin City, NNPC of Warri, BCC Lions of Gboko and Julius Berger FC of Lagos. Speaking with Fuludu stated that though hooliganism in football is as old as the game, it was not rampant in his playing days.
“Playing in the Nigerian league of the
1980s to mid 90s when we had more fans at the stadia did not witness what is obtainable in these contemporary days,” he said. “Then, we had problems of crowd control after games, but usually not fans disrupting a game or attacking match officials.”
Fuludu listed some of the problems responsible for hooliganism in today’s Nigerian league matches to include insufficient police or security presence at match venues. “Where and when we have reasonable numbers as agreed at pre-match meetings, they are made of more women than men and often policewomen with highheeled shoes. “Most match commissioners do not insist on appropriate deployment of combat ready police officers, especially on highprofile matches. Most fans are really not fans because they support a team based on what they earn from managers or chairmen of the clubs, and so in an attempt to please the chairmen, especially at home games, they resort to attacking or intimidating match officials because a win means monetary rewards for them. I have heard of a club paying match bonuses to members of their supporters club as they pay to the players.
“Another factor responsible for hooliganism is the fact that the responsibility of welfare of match officials is left to the home club instead of the state FA. This alone means match officials are deemed compromised before a game and therefore if they handle a game almost perfectly well, then they are supposed to return any supposed hospitality treatment, which most often is in the imagination of the fans.
“This is a country where players dare to ask referees if their clubs’ management did not settle him? Hooliganism will persist as long as erring clubs are treated with kid gloves,” Fuludu stated.
Compared to the situation in the English Premiership, Laliga in Spain, the German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A and even the South African ABSA Premiership, the Nigerian league is overshadowed by poor turnout of spectators due to crowd violence. Local league venues across Nigeria are fast becoming terror grounds, putting the development of the game under severe threat.
In 2015, a cameraman with Lobi Stars of Makurdi, James Bumkeng, was attacked by supporters of Sunshine Stars in Akure. Before that fixture against Lobi, Sunshine Stars had lost its last three matches against Warri Wolves, Kano Pillars and Akwa United, and so needed a win desperately to boost their chances of qualifying for a continental competition the next season.
But the visiting Lobi, who were sitting on the 13th spot on the league table before that match, seven places behind their opponents in sixth, were not willing to take things easy. Leading by a lone goal scored in the sixth minute, the Akure fans went gaga, venting their anger on the centre referee, Ahmed Rufai, whom they accused of failing to award Sunshine two penalties they believed could have changed the tide in their favour.
Bumkeng was on the camera stand doing his job, when all of a sudden, about 10 men said to be supporters of Sunshine Stars started to rain punches on him. “I thought I was going to die, Bumkeng said when he recovered from the injuries he sustained during the attack.
“If I managed to free myself from them and run in a particular direction, more people from that side would chase and hit me. The attack lasted a little above five minutes but those few minutes were like eternity. I was beaten from the camera stand to the pitch, and was only revived at the hospital.”
On his return to Markudi, Bumkeng’s parents told him to quit the job because they were traumatised as a result of the attack.
“My mother actually thought I had been killed when she received the news. It was the second time. I was earlier attacked in Gombe, where my camera was also smashed,” he said. As part of punishments for the unruly behaviour of Sunshine Stars’ fans, the League Management Company (LMC) banned the Akure Stadium from hosting matches for a year while the team was ordered to play its remaining home matches of the season in Lagos. In addition, Sunshine Stars were fined N5 million, while their supporters were banned from attending the rest of their games for the season.
To Edema Fuludu, the most serious and active way to curb hooliganism is immediate deduction of a minimum of three points and ordering the offending club to play three consecutive home games without fans. “A repeat within the season is relegation. I suggest also that fans or supporters be given periodic enlightenment and education. The win at all cost at home must be deemphasized. “Officials/referees must become more professional and be remunerated well. Remuneration is a function of sponsorship by the league management or owners,” he said.
A former manager of Warri Wolves FC, who pleaded anonymity, feels some referees in the Nigerian league are ‘born wicked.’
He said: “So many of them deliberately officiate badly to force club chairmen and managers to bring out money. We had a situation where a referee sent his account number to a club chairman demanding a huge amount of money for his team to win a match. If you fail to play along, he (referee) will frustrate your players from beginning till the end of the match. He is deliberately doing so for the home fans to react negatively. If a fracas happens, and he is beaten or injured by the fans, the club chairman or manager is forced to settle him heavily to avoid the club being banished to a neutral venue. The referees are the major causes of hooliganism in our league,” he said.
Reacting to the allegations against referees, the President of the Nigeria Referees Association (NRA), Tade Azeez says ‘professionalism’ is the best way to solve the problem of hooliganism in Nigerian football league.
Azeez, who was recently re-elected president of the NRA, told
“Clubs should be taken from government and handed over to professionals. It does not necessarily have to be a former player or administrator that can run a club. But the idea of a football club being headed by a governor’s brother or political associate is doing more harm to our league than good.
“While waiting for professionalism to take its course, organisers of our league must abide strictly to the rules. Whatever applies to club A must apply to club B. There should be no special treatment for some clubs.”
On allegation that some Nigerian referees deliberately throw up matches to extort money from club chairmen/managers, Tade Azeez said: “No Nigerian referee will deliberately throw up matches to collect money from the club officials. Our referees are at par with their counterparts around the world. Those making such allegation against our referees should consider the security situation Nigerian referees face on a weekly basis. It is not good for a referee to go to a match venue with his mind seriously troubled by security issues.
“The absence of television at our league venues is another major issue that must be addressed. In some other countries, you have over 22 cameras recording one league match. There is a special camera focused on the referee. But in our league, only one cameraman carries out the job of 22 people. Some people even record matches with their handsets. That is not good for our league,” Azeez stated.
Beyond the threat posed to the lives of referees, visiting club sides, their fans and journalists, at many local league venues, hooliganism has also had a rippling effect on the overall outlook of the game and its revenue-generating potential.
In recent years, the NPFL has lost lucrative sponsorship deals worth millions of naira following incessant crowd violence and disruption of matches, forcing companies like Globacom, a telecommunications firm, to sever ties with the division.