Why we weeded out some referees who are ageing - NRA President

Show me a corrupt referee

*I don't know of referees who collect bribe 

By Oluwole Francis

President of Nigeria Referees Association (NRA), Tade Azeez, reacted to the widely held concern of key stakeholders in the game, especially referees, that they were cheated because they were not up to 45 years required.

“For those that were retired, its not because they're 45. For this exercise we choose people that would be 43 and below as of January 2017. The truth is we have massive number of referees in the lower league who are very young and good. For those retired we have some of them that have been officiating in the premier league for the last 10, 15 years. Whatever you have done for 15 years, this must be a way to ease you out if you don't want to go and allow others to take the challenge.

This game is played by younger people. You can't see a 45 year old player. The boys that are playing this game are within the range of 20 years and most younger than that. You can hardly see anyone that is 30 in the playing rank. So why should a referee be 45? Running in the midst of younger people. Its obvious that the younger people will be faster than him.
And the referee is ordinarily supposed to be ahead of this player. That’s what informed the decision to retire them at that age. Some people say we should retire them at 40. But I said some of the young ones still needs to learn from the experienced one's. For me as NRA president, I don't have any biological son here. These referees are not my cousin, my nephew, my children

Tade Azeez, NRA President

Asking him about referees who are alleged to collect bribe he said prove to me that you have seen anybody collect bribe in your presence. You've no evidence and you are making claims. As far as am the president of NRA, it has not come to my notice that referees are collecting bribe.

He also spoke about the NRA decision to give the responsibility of federation cup final to the young Adebimpe. Are we all impressed with what we saw? Whether the man was young or old did he discharge his duties accordingly or not. Were you not impressed with what you saw? Before we do appointment of referees for matches, we are conscious of where the referee is from, where the teams playing come from.