Two Referees Fail Fitness Test

Two FIFA-badged referees have failed the fitness test for the second quarter of 2013.
The two are: Tunde Abidoye, an assistant men’s referee and a female referee, Hadiza Musa.
It was gathered that the two referees had earlier passed their medical tests, but failed to complete the mandatory laps of race to test for their physical fitness.
Abidoye dropped off after the sixth lap, while Musa dropped at the seventh, instead of the 15 and 12 laps for male and female, respectively.
No fewer than 23 FIFA badge referees were tested. They were made up of five male referees, four assistant male referees.
The other categories of referees that participated included two female referees, four assistant female referees, four beach soccer referees and four Futsal referees.
Their failure was confirmed to newsmen by Ahmed Maude, President of the Nigeria Referees Association (NRA), who was present at the venue — the training pitch of the Abuja National Stadium.
Maude stressed that those that failed did not have reasons to fail, but that they would be re-tested to defend their badges.
“Generally, the test is rated fair because just two people failed out of 23 that were tested.
“But I believe that they will go back and train better for them to defend their badge in August’’.
The quarterly fitness test is carried out by the NRA, in conjunction with the Nigeria Football Association, to ascertain the fitness levels of the match referees.