Despite losing an away controversial 0-1 loss to Spotlight of Katsina on Saturday, Supreme Court FC handler, Henry Haggai, has praised the resilience spirit of his players whose brilliant incursions were truncated by match officials.
Speaking after their encounter with the Shema Boys at the Katsina Township Stadium, head coach Haggai described the unwarranted spot decisions meted out by center referee Mr A. Gbadamasi from Sokoto as unfortunate, while insisting that his side deserved victory after they fought hard throughout the 90 minutes of play.
Taking a look at how both teams fared in one of the match day 9 of the Nigeria National League (NNL), Spotlight first capitalized on a slide by the visitors which resulted to free kick before they established an early lead when the ball was deflected in their favour.
Thereafter, the Apex Boys, as the Abuja-based team are fondly known took the ball to opponents half in the remaining part of the game in search of an equalizer but were denied access by the center referee who refused to award several fouls committed by the home club. One of which was bringing down of Supreme’s striker Eric Eric in stoppage time but the referee refused to award spot kick.
Coach Haggai remarked: “We didn’t deserve to lose this match in any way but the officials decided to do what they like even the match commissioner admitted that the center referee was biased. I must say that my players played to instructions and fought to cancel the early goal which came as a result of deflection.
“What has happened has happened. It is just that this kind of actions by match officials can’t help to develop the game of football in Nigeria. We will continue to do our best as the season progresses.”
