By Daily Sports on May 22, 2018

The Edo Aiteo FA Cup is now in its very advanced stage with the two Nigerian professional league division one sides Bendel Insurance and Dynamite Force reaching the semi-finals of the competition after hard-fought quarter final victories over two highly regarded grassroots outfits on Monday afternoon.

Both games were held at the main bowl if the University of Benin sports complex Ugbowo, Benin City.

In the early kick off, Insurance held off a late surge from Pearlmag FC to edge the underdogs 3-2.

Pearlmag had earlier in the first round of the competition pulled off a shock 3-2 win over one of Nigeria’s strongest grassroots academies BJ Foundation, coming from two goals down to win the thriller of a game.

However, Insurance are a more experienced side and used their know-how to hold their nerves to reach the last four of the competition where they will now face Yak Sports in the semi-final.

In the second game of the day, Dynamite Force were held to a 0-0 draw by Shola FC. In the ensuing penalty shootouts Dynamite did enough to secure a place in the semi-final of the FA Cup.

Shola coaches Ifeanyi Thomas and Chinedu Uba were gracious in defeat as they congratulated Dynamite after the game.

Ubah wrote: “Congratulations, Dynamite. And good officiating from the Ref.”

The classy congratulatory messages from Shola showed that the performance of the referee in the game was clearly non-controversial. 

The performance of referees has come under sharp focus in the Edo FA cup, and reached a crescendo with the abandonment of the Dynamite vs Mission Side match after the center referee was physically assaulted by a Mission Side player.

The Edo FA moved swiftly to bring sanity to the FA cup by banning the player for two years while the referee of the game was hit with an indefinite ban for what the FA, in their considered judgement, may have thought was his poor performance in the said match.

Source Daily Sports

Posted May 22, 2018

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