Safa to lodge formal complaint against ref

Published on

The South African Football Association (Safa) will officially lodge a formal complaint asking Fifa and Caf to investigate the performance of the match officials during Bafana Bafana’s 1-0 defeat to Ghana on Sunday evening.

South Africa’s hopes of participating in the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar came to an end after they suffered a 1-0 defeat to Ghana through a controversial penalty converted by Andre Ayew.

The biggest talking point of the game came when Senegalese referee Maguette Ndiaye controversially adjudged Rushine De Reuck to have fouled Daniel Amartey in the box, although replay suggested that there was minimal contact between the two players.

Safa CEO Tebogo Motlanthe confirmed that the association will be taking further action on the incident during Bafana’s defeat to Ghana on Sunday.

“The association has decided to lodge a formal complaint so that the conduct of the match officials is closely investigated by both FIFA and CAF,” Motlanthe said in a voice note posted on Safa’s official Twitter account.

“But we will be having a press conference that will be telling the nation what will happen going forward.”

The associations CEO then went on to explain the process in which they lodged their formal complaint to both Fifa and Caf by “ticking all the boxes” before their departure back to South Africa.

“For us, the match officials have decided the game, which isn’t what is supposed to happen. As the association we have decided we will be writing to both CAF and FIFA to investigate how the game was handled, and secondly to also challenge some of these decisions. We have already registered with the match commissioner that we will be writing a formal complaint,” Motlanthe confirmed to the media from Ghana.

“Of course, we are travelling today (Monday), but we have ticked all our boxes. The full complaint submitted will be supported by all the evidence, which was there, to say the game was either indeed manipulated or the referee has done something wrong. We are very disheartened by their action and we can’t leave it and let it destroy the players when we have the chance to challenge it. We feel very much robbed because it is not an isolated incident of a penalty – there are just a lot of questionable decisions by match officials.”

Post by

Dylan