The head of refereeing of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), Noumandiez Desire Doue, has clarified the absence of Nigerian referees at the ongoing 2023 Africa Cup of Nations.
In an interview with Sports Brief, Doue said only the “best” can officiate the continent’s premier football tournament.
With the competition now in the knockout stages, praises have been heaped on the overall standard of officiating. However, the glaring omission of Nigerian officials has remained a contentious topic even before the tournament took off.
“We have good referees in Nigeria, but this is our message to referees, to come to CAF competitions, especially to the AFCON; we don’t need good referees; we need the best for CAF competitions.
“Nigerian referees are good, they are improving, and they can still improve more, but they need to do a bit more to be among the best because the selection has been done for one year and a half, so we are in a continuous process of scouting, evaluating, and of selection.
“You know we have different stages; you start as a young talent, then you go Elite B, Elite A, and we pick referees for AFCON from the Elite A.”
Doue also claimed that there are no worse performances from the referees at the competition thus far.
“No, we don’t have a worst performance because every game has a reality; all the games are not the same in terms of football understanding, the behaviour of players, number of critical decisions; we are only looking at the overall performance cos the referees are a team [we’re one team], there are no individualities,” he added.
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“We are pushing or working as a group because it’s either we succeed as a group, or we fail as a group. So, we don’t praise anyone for now.
“This is just a step as the competition is still on, and we still have many challenges after the tournament. So, for us, it’s not to stop now and say, ‘yes we did great’, the praise refereeing is for a day the following day if there’s something everybody will forget the previous performance, and we’re conscious of this.”
The 2023 AFCON is hosted by Ivory Coast.
