NPFL: Half-season review from refereeing lens

Despite the pessimism that greeted the 2023/24 Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) season from some quarters – more out of mischief than honest assessment – the season has cruised to the halfway line after 19 matches.

But the foregoing is not really the focus of this piece. Rather, the focus is on the refereeing aspect of the ongoing season. In the 34-year history of professional football in Nigeria, the referees have had their best season this term, thanks to the comprehensive remuneration package for the whistle-men by the NPFL management that is determined more than ever to entrench quality officiating on the fields.

The marked improvement in the officiating so far is corroborated by the NPFL’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Davidson Owumi, although he also acknowledges what he calls a few errors that could have been avoided with the aid of modern technology.

Of the 185 games played among 20 clubs in the past 19 weeks, there are only about 15 games with officiating issues, representing excellent results for the arbiters. But Owumi concedes that a technology-driven system as modern-day football requires the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) to enable the referees to correct human errors. Little wonder he says the league body is assiduously working with the Nigeria Football Federation and other development partners towards introducing technology in the league in the near future.

In the meantime, however, the NPFL has demonstrated zero tolerance for poor officiating with the swift withdrawal of erring referees from continuous officiating. A good working relationship has also been established with the NFF Referees Appointment Committee to organise training for selected members of the Nigeria Referees Association, whereby the referees adjudged by the committee as poor performers have been promptly delisted.

Yet, the utmost achievement is the prioritisation of the referees’ welfare, such that in an unprecedented manner their travel allowances and sundry honorarium have not only been increased but they have also had their bank accounts credited before they proceed to match venues, aiding their professionalism. This is in addition to the matchday security squad that the NPFL has mandated the management of all the 20 clubs to provide for the visiting teams, a system was established to ensure that clubs that fail to provide the matchday security squad would be ducked three points and three goals.

According to Owumi, the NPFL will stop at nothing to ensure considerable improvement in the officiating of the league, although efforts would also be sustained to seek opportunities at attain the global best rating in refereeing. It needs to be said that the attainment of this particular target could accord new reckoning to Nigerian referees such that they would begin to get the international reckoning that has eluded them for several years.

As the second half of the 2023/24 season gets underway on February 3, Owumi posits that the excellent performance of the referees in the first half is only a “work in progress”; an indication that there is still much better performance to expect from the league arbiters.