It has happened many times that teams are denied victories as a result of unfair officiating caused by our referees who deliberately bend football rules. Some referees have been officiating poorly for best reasons best known to themselves. The authorities have been keeping a blind eye until fans and other stakeholders raise their voices.
The causes for this undesirable habit are multiple, beginning with the Tanzania Football Federation itself. Club officials, the Football Referees Association of Tanzania and premier league board all play part in the resultant poor officiating of the league matches.
The referees themselves have been championing the biased officiating to meet their own interests.
The league board whether out of their own initiatives or under undue influence of the higher authorities within the football body have played crucial role towards this poor habit.
It is evident that there are selected referees who have been assigned ‘special’ matches with a view of protecting certain clubs so that they should not lose matches under any circumstances.
Regardless of their prevailing playing forms, these teams have been finding it difficult to meet their winning objectives and the outcome is for referees to bend rules with consequence of causing riots at the match venues.
There are referees who have lost their freedom of officiating through taking orders from football officials and others who are tempted by club officials through oiling their palms.
We have seen spectacular goals being scored by players but for reasons best known by referees are disallowed at a broad daylight. Teams are robbed of victories as matches are fixed without actions to be taken against the offenders.
The number of referees who have been punished as a result of bending rules are just a tip of an iceberg. What happened in Tanga, Geita and Kigoma does not make a representative sample of poor officiating and resultant match fixing.
There are teams that joined the relegation bandwagon but did not deserve it. Some of the very competent teams have been losing matches to weak sides so as to boost their points tally and survive relegation purge and got away with it.
The Tanzania Football Federation has a long way if at all it cares to fight against biased officiating or match fixing in totality.
As the Mainland premier league kicks off next month, our soccer authorities must bear in mind to resolve these calamities that tarnish our game.
If the trend is allowed to continue, then we will be producing the kind of champions that are incompetent to match with the rest in the continent in the CAF leagues.
Our referees will always be snubbed by the Confederation of African Football as they will miss appointment to work on big and prestigious high-profile soccer tournament platforms.
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