Abia Warriors held Joy Cometh to a 1-1 draw in Lagos and it was a dramatic game that saw and once again indicated the power in the fans being the twelfth man on the pitch.
In the build-up to Joy Cometh’s goal, the referee sounded the whistle for an infringement which he felt was outside the goal area, and gave a free-kick but quickly changed his decision to a penalty after much shouting from the crowd who felt the referee was making a mistake.
Players of Joy Cometh have lamented the officiating in the game and feel their fate in the game was not in their hands and Joy Cometh’s Playmaker Jide Taiwo, emphasized the officiating as not being fair while speaking to Sports247.
“Wasn’t the result we wanted but we thank God nonetheless. The officiating was really bad even on our home ground. We know the proper thing in football is to play well and win, nothing like home or away but the officiating should be fair,” Jide said.
“When we got the penalty, the fans had to shout from outside first because it was very glaring, why won’t you pick it, it’s a normal thing to do. They eventually gave it after the noise from the fans. We’ll go back to work on ourselves too and prepare for our next game away and hopefully, we can get a win,” Jide added.
Speaking on the teams’ inability to create many chances, Jide explained the players were a little fatigued and didn’t get their tactics right at the start. “There was fatigue on the path of the players so we didn’t really play to our strength as we could have done more. Also, we didn’t get our tactics right at first but in the long run, we did and got the penalty. Hopefully, in the next game, we’ll be able to do better as we heard our opponents are a very good side and we need to be prepared,” Jide Taiwo concluded.
