The league’s management board has sanctioned Rangers International and Enyimba F.C following the disruption of the Nigeria Premier Football League Match Day 35 Oriental derby fixture held in Enugu on Sunday at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium.
The heavyweight clash, a potential title decider, was abandoned in the seventh minute of the eight minutes added time after the referee awarded a late penalty for Rangers, a decision that did not sit well with Enyimba players resulting in some of them getting physical with one of the assistant referees.
Rangers were not allowed to take the penalty as Enyimba players staged a walkout from the pitch before hundreds of fans stormed the pitch while some threw dangerous objects which subsequently forced the arguably biggest top flight game in more than a decade with more than 30,000 fans to be abandoned.
In the ‘summary jurisdiction notice’ sent to Enyimba on Monday, the Peoples’ Elephant were fined one million naira for failure to ensure proper conduct of the team, five million naira for disrupting a live broadcast, one million naira for throwing objects on the field and another one million naira for encroachment by their fans.
They were fined another two million naira for causing the disruption and discontinuation of the match, adding up to a total of 10 million naira in financial penalties.
In addition, Enyimba forfeited three points and three points in favour of Rangers for refusing to allow the penalty awarded to the hosts thereby disrupting the match and ending the game. They were also ordered to produce the erring players in addition to already-identified Eze Ekwutoziam, Chibuike Nwaiwu and Akanni Elijah for appropriate sanctions.
Meanwhile, only a five million naira fine was imposed on Rangers with one million naira being for the failure to implement crowd control measures, two million naira for over-ticketing, one million naira for failure to provide adequate security and another one million naira for allowing unauthorised persons gain access to restricted areas.
Rangers were also hit with an order to implement a more effective crowd control mechanism in subsequent home games.
The ruling put Rangers comfortably on top of the league table with 64 points, five points ahead of second-placed Enyimba with only three matches remaining before the end of the season. The Flying Antelopes only need four points from those games to win the league irrespective of the result of Enyimba’s remaining fixtures.
Both teams have 48 hours to either submit to the fines or appeal the verdicts before a disciplinary panel which could result in additional sanctions if their appeals fail or found to be frivolous.
