The Minister of Sports Development, Senator John Owan Enoh, has expressed his displeasure over the non-inclusion of Nigerian officials amongst the match officials listed for the 2023 African Cup of Nations, holding in Cote D’Ivoire next year.
Enoh stated that given Nigeria’s population and pedigree in football, the country should not be in such predicament, as he promised to engage with bodies related to the matter.
The Minister stated thus “at the last AFCON (2021), Nigeria only had one assistant referee listed amongst the match officials. Two years prior, we didn’t have any centre referee too. Going in to the next AFCON, we still won’t have any Nigerian official. I am going to interrogate this matter. We will have engagements with the NFF, the Referees’ Association, the League Board, because we need to get to the bottom of this.”
