Nigeria premier League side Dakada FC has apologised to the public, NFF and LMC following reported attack on match official during their match with visiting Remo Stars on Sunday.
The match which ended 1-1 was certainly overshadowed by the reported attack that has left sour taste on the mouth of those who have been praying and wishing the league will turn a new leaf and become better and more accommodating.
Commendably the club has confirmed fishing out the culprit which the first step to ensuring that those who make match venues battle field for either collective or personal selfish reasons are disciplined.
The club through its media manager Comrade Edidiong Stephen issued a statement thus:
Our attention has been drawn to a video making the rounds on social media which indicates that one of the match officials who took charge of the Match Day Four fixture of the Nigeria Professional Football League between Dakkada and Remo Stars in Uyo last Sunday may have been assaulted.
We wish to state that we had not noticed the gory incident as indicated by the circulated video before now mainly because it may have occurred at the end of the match but we completely frown at it.
Our prestigious club has zero tolerance for any form of thuggery and other forms of indiscipline which are capable of bringing the beautiful game to disrepute including assault on match officials or members of the visiting team as available records, right from our days in the Nigeria National League, bear us out in this regard.
To this end we wish to state as follows;
- That the individual who has been indicted by the video has been identified.
- That for security reasons the identity of the indicted individual would remain concealed from the public but revealed to the appropriate quarters including the League Management Company (LMC) and the Nigeria Police Force.
- That the incident has been reported to the Nigeria Police Force through the Chief Security Officer (CSO) of Akwa Ibom state Football Association who is a Superintendent of Police for thorough investigation and prosecution.
- That the identified individual has been banned with immediate effect from all activities related to Dakkada Football Club for an initial period of one year pending the outcome of both an on-going internal review of the incident as well as the outcome of the investigation of the Police.
In the interim, we sincerely apologize to the affected match official and the entirety of the Nigeria (Football) Referees Association, the LMC, Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and the general public.”
A league living on the shadows of other major and popular leagues like the EPL, La Liga , Bundesliga and Ligue 1 which command a lot of followership from football fans cannot afford to progress in error while lamenting that fans neither turn out for matches nor are passionate about the local league.
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If the local league is to occupy a place of pride in the hearts of genuine sports lovers it must part ways with fracas, thuggery poor officiating among other vices that have been the in-thing over the years.
Beginning a new year with such report is to say the least regrettable .
It is too early in the year to begin to ‘loss teeth and bandage heads’ and efforts must be made by all and sundry to ensure that this is the last to be reported this year.
