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| NFF President, Alhaji Aminu Maigari | credits: www.newnigeriannewspapers.com |
The Nigeria Football Federation has
announced that the players and officials engaged in two promotion
play-off games that produced scandalous 79-0 and 67-0 results have been
banned for life.
According to the recommendations made by
the organising committee of the NFF, the 8 referees and assistant
referees who supervised the matches — Mohammed Mohammed, S. Chiroma, A.
Shina, H. Murtala, Umar Garba, M. Salahudin, Sani Abdul and Hassan Pegt
earned life ban for their roles. All four amateur clubs have banned for
10 years.
“The NFF have accepted the
recommendations and they will be communicated to the clubs, the state
FA’s, CAF and FIFA. We will publish all the names of players and
officials with their photographs and details,” NFF vice-president Mike
Umeh who headed the committee said in Abuja on Monday.
He said while the winners were desperate
to win, the losers were too willing to lose, although the committee
could not establish any exchange of money or material inducement.
“Circumstantial evidence was
overwhelmingly high and points to only one conclusion — that of match
fixing of unprecedented nature — which has brought global embarrassment
to Nigeria Football Federation, in particular, and the nation in
general.”
Captain of Akurba, Anjide Said Timothy,
who scored three own goals against his team, was given special mention
for championing the scandalous result.
The General Secretary of the federation Mr. Musa Amadu told The PUNCH that the federation had received the report and that the recommendations would be adopted.
Amadu said, “We have received it and the
major thing to do now is to ensure that the recommendations are
enforced to the letter. It has been quite a huge embarrassment for the
country. Everyone involved proved that they have no business playing the
game of football. We have added their photographs to make the
implementation practicable just in case there’s change of name or
anything of that sort.
“Sincerely it is not just to announce bans but to fully implement such decision and that is exactly what we will do.”
The NFF officials have commenced further
documentations of the players and their background through letters and
photographs to the state football associations and the police.
In the promotion play-offs into the
Nigeria Nationwide League, the lowest tier of Nigeria domestic League,
Plateau United Feeders beat Akurba FC 79-0, while Police Machine FC
demolished Bubayaro FC 67-0. All the teams were involved in promotion
play-offs in which the winners would qualify to play in Nigeria
Nationwide League Division 3. The match between Plateau and Akurba had
ended 7-0 in the first half before a scoring spree then produced 72
goals in the second half.
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