It was a black afternoon at the Abuja National Stadium yesterday as two referees dropped dead during a cooper test.

After some postponements for the cooper test, the referees were eventually gathered at the Abuja National Stadium for the regular test to ascertain their level of fitness in readiness for the national league due to kick off next month.

The incident occurred barely two minutes into the jogging aspect after some other events like sprinting had been concluded. Their names were given as Oyetola Olatunde, a national league referee from Oyo State and Faloye Matthew, a Premier League referee from Ogun State.

It was reliably gathered that a strong warning was earlier sent to that batch of referees as some participants, including the dead, had previously failed similar test. Those who failed did not qualify for yesterday’s test. But the warning was not heeded and this led to the tragedy.

“Somebody wanted to do them a favour and yielded to pressure to include their names,” a source lamented yesterday.

The two referees had completed their test training when they slumped and died on their way to the hospital.
It was gathered that the duo were in different groups and had finished the ten laps of jogging and had the remaining walking exercise when they slumped.

According to an eye witness account, while efforts were one to resuscitate one slumped referee, the other fell. They were not responding and were quickly taken to the hospital.

Sunday Audu, the Nigeria Referees Association secretary general however confirmed the incident and said the families of the deceased have been contacted.

While their bodies have been deposited at the mortuary awaiting autopsy, arrangements are being made to convey their remains to their respective homes.
CAF Referee instructor and retired Fifa referee,