The South African Football Association (SAFA) will contest the decision in the 1-0 defeat to Ghana that ‘robbed’ them of the 2022 FIFA World Cup play-offs, CEO Tebogo Motlanthe confirmed on Monday.
Bafana Bafana needed just one point to advance as Group G winners but a questionable first-half penalty saw Andre Ayew net the only goal of the game for the Black Stars to progress via goal difference.
But Motlanthe says they won’t allow the call to destroy the group of players and have already submitted a formal complaint about the officiating led by referee Maguette Ndiaye.
“The match officials decided the game which is not supposed to happen, so we as the association have decided that we will be writing to CAF and FIFA to investigate how the game was handled and secondly to also challenge some of the decisions,” he said.
“As we did last night we already registered with the match commissioner that we’ve already written a formal letter of complaint and today we’re travelling of course [back to South Africa].”
Motlanthe confirmed they will have a press conference on Wednesday once they have ‘ticked all their boxes’ and submitted their complaint ‘supported by all evidence’ to prove the game was manipulated or the referees got it wrong.
“We feel robbed because it’s not an isolated decision of the penalty, there are many questionable decisions from match officials and that’s why we’ll get experts to make a strong case.”
