Zambian international referee, Janny Sikazwe who blew the whistle twice before full-time in a match between Mali and Tunisia in the Africa Cup of Nations has given his side of the story.
Sikazwe blew the whistle in the 85th minute, but after noticing his mistake the game continued until minute 89 where he officially ended the match for a second time.
The highly rated African referee has come under criticism after the incident, and now he insisted it was not his intentional decision.
“I have seen people going for duties outside the country and come back in a casket,” he said as per BBC Sport.
“I was very close to coming back like that, I was lucky I didn’t go into a coma. It would have been a very different story.
“The doctors told me my body was not cooling down. It would have been just a little time before I would have gone into a coma, and that would have been the end.
“I think God told me to end the match. He saved me.”
And there were reports claiming the match official suffered from a heat stroke, but he has now put it in record what was happening with him during the match.
“I started getting confused. I could not hear anybody,” Sikwaze said as quoted by Zambian media.
“I reached the point where I could start hearing some noise and I thought someone was communicating with me and people were telling me ‘no you ended the match’. It was a very strange situation.
“I was going through my head to find who told me to end the match. Maybe I was talking to myself, I don’t know. That is how bad the situation was.”
