By Lexi Elo
Top FIFA-badged Nigerian football referees will continue to be overlooked from international competitions by FIFA and CAF owing to their lack of officiating time in the Nigeria Professional Football League.
No Nigerian centre referee has handled a game at the Africa Cup of Nations since the retirement of Chukwudi Chukwujekwu – who officiated two games at the 2002 AFCON in Mali. FIFA tournaments have been a wild goose chase for Nigerian referees with none deemed worthy.
With the FIFA U17 World Cup in Chile, All African Games in Congo, African U23 Championship in Senegal and CHAN 2016 in Rwanda all around the corner, central referees Opeyemi Amao, Ago Abubakar, Ferdinand Udoh, Abdullahi Shuaibu, Benjamin Odey and Henry Ogunyamodi are likely to be overlooked.
All were part of the select team of referees that made the trip to London for a training when Amaju Pinnick became head of the NFF.
Should this happen, it will be severe setback for Ferdinand Udoh whose style of officiating has drawn comparison with legendary Italian referee Pierluigi Collina.
He was the only Nigerian picked to officiate at the 2015 African U17 Championship in Niger Repulic and was also on duty when Mali played South Sudan in a 2017 Afcon qualifier. Sadly, he has handled a paltry three games out of 16 NPFL topflight matches since April.
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On assumption of office, newly elected President of the Nigeria Referees Association, Alhaji Tade Azeez revealed his plans for referees in the country as well as his aspirations for those in the elite cadre.
“I have big plans for Nigerian referees and top of them is to ensure that our referees are picked to [officiate] international games – most especially the 2018 Fifa World Cup. The fact is that we have good hands that can challenge the best from other parts of the world,” Azeez told Goal.
Plausible as this optimism may sound, elite referees are still not given enough matches to handle on the domestic scene. Instead, administrators usually give work to lower-profile referees who are essentially expected to earn money from the assignments, a job-for-the-boys action.
More refereeing work for elite central referees will not only keep them fit, but will also be a great chance for them to prove their ability to officiate at the world stage because in football officiating, more work means more experience and more expperience means greater confidence on the big stage.