What was meant to be a test and friendly match in preparation for 2024/2025 Nationwide League One was turned to a charade by poor officiating as Best Talent Football Club of Mowe fought gallantly but lost 2-3 with 9 men against Tripple 44 Football Academy in Ibadan. 

The two teams started the game with great intensity operating on high ultitude and the efforts paid off as both teams settled for one all draw in the first 45 minutes of the game. 10 minutes goal was all the hosts needed only to be canceled by Salaudeen 39 minutes strike.

The apprehension was high and the dominant force of Best Talent appeared too much for Tripple 44 to curtail, only for the referees to give questionable matching order to the Mowe giant as Adekunle and Adeoti dubiously red carded by members of Oyo state Referee Council with the exemption of AR1 who remained uncompromised and the homers capitalised on the numerical strength over the Integrity side to latch on two quick goals no thanks to poor officiating as fans questioned the sincerity of the Oyo State referee council members to allow Ogun State outfit to play their much anticipated beautiful game.

The ingenuity of Coach Yusuf Farouk was brought to fore as his lads still absorbed the pressure up to 85 minutes only for two quick goals from the Ibadan based and a hard fought response that reduced the rally brought the game to 3-2 .Tripple 44 had a player sent off at 85 minutes of play.

Speaking with Best Talent coach, Farouk Yusuf shared the opinions of the fans who lampooned the referees for not giving them a balanced officiating to enjoy an ordinary friendly match that should have been used to ascertain the veracity of the  players capability ahead of the new season. 

"Football sometime can be funny. We had a slow start as we conceded an early goal. We came into the game from our journey and recorded an equalizer to an early goal at 39 minutes."

"Well, I think being a friendly match, I expected the referee to allow us play our game as we intended to replace the red carded but the Tripple 44 coach said No. May be he thinks he could not match the intensity of my boys playing with the same number of players. My defender got sent off but we think we could replace him to balance the game for proper assessment but their coach delined out of probably fear. Before we could get ourselves back, we conceded 2 quick goals playing with 9 men

 "I don't really like talking about officiating but as everyone is complaining with this game they all watched, I think it's an obvious thing as the officiating was a bit biased. Apart from the two red cards against my boys, there are other things in the game that were not so good that made the fans queried the competence of some of these referees except one."

On the conspicuous absence of the team striker, former Magate coach disclosed that his top goal scorer was not available. 

"My striker, Isaacs Basuaye was not available today but the new guy is trying to get into the team and with time, he will do lot better"
He submitted.

*Credit: Sunday Agunbiade (Mr VAR)*