Alhaji Salisu Abubakar, the Chief Operating Officer of the League Management Company, on Tuesday in Abuja said plans were underway to introduce anti-corruption laws for football in Nigeria.
Abubakar, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, said the laws would help check the activities of corrupt club and match officials when they become operational.
He said the LMC was collaborating with the Minister of Sports, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, to ensure that the proposal to have the laws sees the light of the day.
Abubakar said: “We want to make specific anti-corruption laws for football and, by the time the laws come out, we should see changes in the league.
“The LMC, in its normal way, will not make noise about this.
“But by the time it (LMC) comes out with a result, it will be something for all to cherish.”
The LMC COO said the need for the proposed laws was necessitated by the perceived high level of corruption in the domestic league.
He pointed out that the Nigerian league would be better for it in the long run when the laws.
He said: “In my opinion, Nigerian referees can be the best in the world if they want and they can also be the worst in the world if they want.
“Most times when you go to watch a match somewhere else, they will tell you that the man of the match is one player or the other.
“But, here in Nigeria, the man of the match most times is the referee because of his or her questionable officiating.”
Bitrus Bewarang, President of the Nigerian Football Coaches Association, had recently raised the alarm over “the high level of corruption in the domestic league”.
Bewarang noted that the future of coaching in Nigeria was bleak if nothing was done to checkmate corruption in the domestic league, especially the Nigeria National League.
He said: “My fear for coaches is that if this corruption continues, very soon we will not have jobs again because nobody will come and watch the matches.
“No sponsor will spend his or her money as it is done all over the world and the losers will be the coaches and the footballers.
“If this corruption is not going to stop, you will discover that what we will be having is a situation where club proprietors will come and handle the teams.
“Right now, you can hear some of them saying that it is not their coaches or players that have taken them to the top of the league table but their money.”
The coach, however, advised club owners to channel their resources to the development of players and not use money to buy slots and positions.
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