Former FIFA referee Ace Ncobo has applauded referee Masixole Bambiso for the bravery of awarding Orlando Pirates a last-minute penalty in the Soweto Derby, calling it a spot-on decision.
The Buccaneers took home an important three points and bragging rights after Patrick Maswanganyi stepped up to convert the spot-kick.
But there was lots of the debate about the referee’s call to point to the spot in the 93rd minute after Njabulo Blom appeared to have impeded Relebohile Mofokeng.
However, Ncobo insisted Bambiso had all of his decisions regarding the incident spot-on.
“We’ve got to applaud the bravery of the decision, first and foremost,” he said on Extra-Time.
“I’ve heard many thinks about ‘advantage’ – let’s first rule that out, there was no advantage given by the referee.
“At no point during the entire phase of play does he stretch out any arm of him to indicate there is an advantage. He looks at the situation, blows the whistle and points at the penalty spot. No advantage was given!
“What the referee did was to look at that incident, he looked at the holding taking place inside the penalty area. Look at the impact that the holding has on the player [Mofokeng] who was in possession at the time the holding started and now because he’s being impeded from proceeding to be possession, he loses possession and when he’s about to regain possession there’s already another defender [Bvuma], because that’s what a goalkeeper is – there is another defender who is now attacking the ball right in front of him.
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“The referee blows his whistle the moment the ball scraps past the outside of the upright. Did he give an advantage? No. Would he have been correct in giving an advantage? No. Because there was no advantage realised. There was no striker against whom an offence was made in possession of the ball – so it wouldn’t have been an advantage.
“The second point, people have been asking ‘why no red card?’ Because holding and there is an obvious goalscoring opportunity, even if the penalty is awarded, it’s a straight red because there was no attempt to play the ball. But as soon as the goalkeeper came out, he killed any obviousness of a goalscoring opportunity, so there was no DOGSO involved, that is why it became an ordinary situation of a player holding an opponent – penalty awarded.
“Spot-on decision in awarding a penalty, spot-on decision in handing out a yellow card, spot-on decision in the bravery of the moment. Beautiful from the referee.”