By Velile Mnyandu
The president of the South African Football Association, Danny Jordaan has revealed how SAFA are going to proceed over their protest of the Ghana-Bafana Bafana game.
SAFA are not giving up on its case against Senegalese referee Maguette Ndiaye yet, despite the FIFA Disciplinary Committee throwing out its application as inadmissible.
This was confirmed by Jordaan, who revealed that the local football mother body CEO Tebogo Motlanthe, is still waiting for FIFA to furnish him with the full ruling, so that they consider their option on whether they would appeal or not.
SAFA had lodged a complaint with FIFA, alleging bias against Ndiaye and asking the world’s football governing body to investigate possible match manipulation against the 2022 World Cup candidate referee following the 1-0 loss to Ghana.
This game was also marred by the controversial penalty that Ndiaye awarded after Mamelodi Sundowns centre-back Rushine de Reuck was adjudged to have brought down Black Stars and Leicester City defender Daniel Amartey inside the box.
SAFA then enlisted the services of an independent referee analyst, Andile “Ace” Ncobo, to look into the officiating in this game and he compiled a 17-page report which highlighted absolute bias on the side of Ndiaye and his officiating team against Bafana Bafana, with more than 90% of incorrect decisions going against them in the game, compared to the 9.1% of the incorrect decisions against the Black Stars.
Jordaan has reiterated their earlier stance about the possible appeal to FIFA, a decision they would have to take 10 days from the receipt of the ruling that they received.
“Well, I think we’ve received the one-line letter from FIFA. The CEO has already written a letter to FIFA to ask them for more information, because we had given them information,” Jordaan told iDiski Times.
“They have not responded to it and he had made a follow up and we will await to see the response from FIFA, hopefully in the week coming.
“I think that FIFA has got a responsibility to protect the integrity of their competitions, and we’ll await their response,” said Jordaan, when asked if they still believe that they have a strong case after FIFA had dismissed their initial submission.
In 2017, FIFA ordered Bafana Bafana to replay their World Cup qualifier against Senegal which they had won 2-1, after Ghanaian referee Joseph Lamptey was banned for life from football as he was found guilty of match manipulation after making some wrong decisions to make certain bets successful.
The Black Stars are through to the third and final stage of the World Cup qualifiers, where they will play in the two legged play-offs in March 2022 to decide the five countries to represent Africa at the World Cup in Qatar.
