It is being rumoured that the Confederation of African Football (CAF) are mulling over appointing non-African referees for the nail biting, bitter 2022 World Cup final playoffs between archrivals Nigeria and Ghana and the other fixtures.
Recall, officiating decisions arguably and controversially contributed to Nigeria's ouster from the recently concluded Afcon after the Senegalese referee handed Alex Iwobi his walking papers following a VAR review.
If CAF goes ahead with utilising foreign officials for the encounter against Ghana, it will be the first time this has been done.
The idea behind this is to ensure to minimize the possibilities of generating grievances from questionable decisions.
Some fans would welcome this while others may feel it would have no difference on the outcome of the encounters either way.
For long, Nigeria fans have bemoaned alleged questionable officiating on the continent. In the double header Wafcon qualifiers against Ivory Coast in February, two of Nigeria's goals in each leg were chopped off due to questionable officiating.
In 2021, Nigeria's Under 21 team tutored by Ladan Bosso suffered from questionable decisions in the WAFU cup leading to their ouster.
In such a high stakes match between Nigeria and Ghana, the nature of officiating has to be spot on as this could mean the difference between playing at the world cup and watching proceedings from home.
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