Desperate attempts by two promotion seeking amateur football clubs to step up into the Nigerian Nationwide League, the lowest tier of the domestic league, has landed both clubs in trouble. The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Tuesday suspended all the four clubs involved in the scandalous scorelines during promotion play-offs on Monday. In a show of shame that reduced the Akwa United, Calabar Rovers 13-0 saga to a child’s play, Plateau United Feeder team manufactured a 79-0 victory over Akurba FC while Police Machine FC demolished Babayaro FC 67-0 to go down in history as the greatest scandalous scoreline ever recorded in the history of the game in the country. All teams were involved in promotion play-offs in which the winners would qualify to play in Nigeria Nationwide League Division 3. But Minister of Sports, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, who felt scandalised by such mind-boggling scorelines immediately directed the NFF to probe the four teams involved in the show of shame. “The moment we got wind of this scandalous result yesterday, the minister and chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC), immediately got in touch with the NFF to find out what happened in the two matches,” revealed a top NSC official Tuesday. Chairman of the NFF Organising Committee, Chief Mike Umeh, who is also 1st Vice President of the federation, also raised the alarm when informed about the scandalous scoreline. In line with the minister’s directive, he promptly directed that the four teams at the centre of the scandal be grounded, pending further sanctions on all the persons involved in the match-fixing. “It is unacceptable. This is a scandal of huge proportions. The four teams involved are suspended immediately and indefinitely, pending further sanctions. We will investigate this matter thoroughly and get to the bottom of it,” Umeh assured Nigerian football fans. NFF’s Director of Competitions, Dr. Mohammed Sanusi assured that the Organising Committee would mete out severe sanctions on all persons and institutions indicted by the investigation. “For now, that centre is suspended. The teams involved, their players and officials, match officials, coordinator and anyone found to have played some role in this despicable matter would be severely dealt with,” Sanusi said.