Following the recent spate of crowd restiveness at league venues, the Nigeria Premier League (NPL) has decided to take over security arrangements from state football associations.

Alhaji Owolabi Agbaji-Wopa, an NPL member representing North-Central, stated this in an interview with newsmen on Monday in Ilorin.

The NPL member decried the frequent encroachment of fans into the field of play during league matches and described the development as an embarrassment and a bad advertisement for football.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the NPL’s 2011/2012 matches had been fraught with crowd restiveness, which is gradually becoming the hallmark of the league’s games.

The latest of such disorderly conduct was the Week 13 encounter between Heartland FC of Owerri and Enyimba FC in which heartland lost 3-2 to their "oriental rivals".

The result did not go down well with Heartland’s supporters who vented their anger on the referee.

Wopa-Agbaji warned that any club that flouts the rules and regulations of the NPL would be sanctioned by the regulatory body and urged clubs to call their fans to order.

"It is the poor security situation in most of the league venues that is affecting television coverage of the league matches.

"We need teams to prevail on their supporters on the need to be well behaved at all times, especially during league matches," said the NPL member.

Speaking on the ill-fated Week 12 Kwara United and Sunshine Stars FC encounter in which the match was abandoned, the NPL member said that the body would act decisively on the issue.

Agbaji-Wopa also announced that two refrees, Sanni Mohammed from Kaduna and Billy Aminu from Sokoto, have been banned for the rest of the season because of their alleged complicity in the matches they officiated.

He added that a committee had been set up to assess matches to ensure fair play.

The NPL official urged football fans to remain steadfast and to continue to watch league matches. (NAN)