79-0, 67-0: Life ban for players and officials

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.


Source: Punch