Technical Adviser of Remo Stars, Daniel Ogunmodede has cited bad officiating and poor playing turf on the LAUTECH Sports Complex as reason of his team’s lone goal defeat to Crown FC on Matchday 8 of the Nigeria National League (NNL) season.
Ogunmodede who applauded his boys for their performance said the referee and his assistants ‘messed up’ the game and pointed out that the lone goal which eventually decided the game wouldn’t have gotten past his goalkeeper if the pitch was good enough.
“We had a very good performance and we tried our best to do what we can do but fortunately for the opponent, they got the advantage and took it. Credit to the bad pitch; the ball bounced awkwardly in front of our goalkeeper and it was a goal.”
He described the state of the second tier league as appalling and unhealthy, thus buttressed the earlier call of the Private Club Owners to pull out of the NNL due to bad officiating and other pressing demands as stated in a memo released by the clubs.
“They will pull out. We are in a total mess in this country because if we are in Week 8 and 12 teams are pulling out with excuses, we can’t continue like this” he emphasized.
“These are kids and most of the players are home grown from our youth team and their psychological moral is supposed to be tighten up everytime in the game” the coach reacted to the scenarios where he had to infuriatedly call out his boys off the pitch.
“My boys are not used to bad officiating so I just called them to leave the referee and they should just play”.
Rauf Taiwo’s 40th minute free kick from edge of the box was the ultimate drop that earned Crown FC their third home win of the season.
The match was like a reunion between Ogunmodede and his former boss Oladuuni Oyekale of Crown FC and as such the game had been infused with lots of narratives.
When asked if his team alongside other private teams would eventually pull out of the league as taunted, he replied that the development will not bear any negative effects on the team adding that their focus is to sell players and it has been paying off handsomely.
Remo Stars are still the leader on the Group B2 log of the NNL Southern Conference with 15 points and the victory for Crown FC consequently saw them move to second on the log with 14 points.
