The Gombe State Chapter of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria has called for drastic measures to check incidents of assault of referees in the Nigeria Professional Football League.
The state Chairman, Halilu Teli, gave the advice in Gombe on Tuesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria.
Teli said incidents of referees being assaulted was an unhealthy development in that needed to be addressed, adding that with such unwholesome happening, our league could not compete favourably with their counterparts in Europe.
According to him, it has become necessary to fashion out ways of addressing the issue to avoid sanctions from the Nigeria Referees Association which would have dire consequences on football development in the country.
He said: “The constant assaults on referees in the NPFL has come to a climax; there is need for imposition of punishment that can be felt by clubs, and not the ‘kid gloves’ kind of punishment that is being meted out now.”
Teli however observed that some of the problems could be traced to the behaviour of match officials, and called on the Nigerian Referees Association to punish its erring members.
He, therefore, called on match officials to do their work with all fairness and justice, adding that such would go a long way in addressing the issues of intimidation and harassment of referees in NPFL.
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