Tendai Makaripe
The Nigerian football fraternity has been plunged into mourning following the death of one of the country’s aspiring top referees Osita Nwadashi from Lagos State Referee Council.
Nwadashi collapsed and died in Abuja on Wednesday during the annual referees fitness exercise in preparation for the upcoming season.
Nwadashi was taking part in the exercise and was on the verge of completing the last lap of the mandatory running exercise, when he stepped aside and signalled to the medical personnel for attention.
Efforts to resuscitate him proved fruitless. He was taken in an ambulance to the National Hospital, Abuja where he was pronounced dead.
It is believed that the Nwadashi died as a result of exhaustion.
The tragedy comes in the wake of statements made by the President of the Nigeria Referees Association Ahmed Maude that all referees should undergo various medical tests in a Federal Medical Centre in the various states and were also subjected to rounds of test by medical team of referees at the venue of the test.
Ahmed Maude, President of the Nigeria Referees Association, confirmed the incident.
“It is a sad day for all of us,” Maude said. “He was one of our more promising young referees.”
Chairman of Lagos State referee Council Tade Azeez distanced his association from the death sighting that Nwadashi’s passing on was purely accidental as his association did everything humanly possible to avert such an ugly incident during the exercise.
“We had the best of everything. The medical personnel are from NSC, and all of them passed medical tests before we allow them to participate in the exercise. If the family is interested in doing autopsy on him we cannot stop them. It was a very sad day for me in particular and an unfortunate situation,” Azeez said.
In 2010, two referees Oyetola Oatunde from Oyo State Referees Council, and Faloye Matthew from the Ogun State Council both collapsed and dies in similar circumstances.
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