My biggest regrets as referee -Alex Mana

For decades, it has been a recurring decimal for Nigerian referees to be dropped from top flight FIFA organised competitions. While both the public and the football authorities have continued to blame the referees for their inability to make it, retired FIFA badged referee, Dr. Alex Mana, is full of regrets that the Nigerian referee is highly misunderstood.
Speaking at a chance meeting with Sunday Sunsports at the MM2 in Ikeja, he stated that Nigerian referees are so maligned that they have been thrown to the dogs. He is of the view that if the Nigerian referee is given the right encouragement, they would go places.
“I feel sad that things are going the way it is at the moment. I feel bad that nobody sees anything good about the Nigerian referee because some of us had compromised in such a manner that people just generalise and speak ill of Nigerian referees. I look back at my days as a referee and still feel sad that I never made it to a major FIFA World Cup assignment.”

He said that referees' administration has not helped the cause of players because they have over politicised issues for their selfish interest.
Dr. Alex Sule Mana, who currently lectures at the National Institute for Sports in Lagos, has been a FIFA referee from 1995 till the end of 2008. “I looked forward to making it to the FIFA World Cup. I did not because things were so badly done in the administration of referees that things are done so badly. When the late Gen. Yabilsu was president of the Nigeria Referees Association (NRA), he helped to propagate the very high standards to us, but subsequent leadership has not helped. When the good referees are not in their books, they prefer to use those that are still learning the ropes.”
He noted that when such referees fail, they blame the lot of Nigerian referees. “The thinking here is that all Nigerian referees are corrupt and that is not true. In fact, many people used to call me the highest bidder and I didn't know why until recently when I went to the football secretariat in Abuja. I asked one of the staff who called me as such and he said most clubs would fight over me to be the centre referee in their away matches because they know that I'm firm.”
“Look at the way some of us finished our refereeing career without making it big in the long run. Many of us are victims of politics and it pains me to my marrows that countries that can't even look us in the eyes are producing referees that feature at major FIFA events. Take a look at Togo, Republic of Benin and their like and compare them to us. They can't match us and I don't see them as better referees than those we have in Nigeria, but their countries work for them and they are right up there. We need to look at people on merit if we want to grow,” the former athlete stated.

source:sunnewsonline