January 19 – The Mali Football Federation (FMF) has made an official protest to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) over the controversial Angola versus Algeria game.
Mali allege the sides purposefully played out a goalless draw last night that ensured they both progressed to the Africa Cup of Nations quarter-finals.
However, Algeria’s Hameur Bouazza, who plays for Coca-Cola Championship club Blackpool, insisted his side were trying to win.
He said: ”We wanted to keep the ball and we knew Mali were winning 3-1 and we tried to score the goal.”
The draw in the final Group A game resulted in Algeria finishing level on four points with Mali, who beat Malawi 3-1 in their final match.
Algeria, though, advanced thanks to their better head-to-head record with Mali after the Desert Foxes beat the Eagles in their group game.
In their protest to CAF the FMF claimed the attitude of both sides was contrary to FIFA’s ethics of fair play.
The FMF also claimed that CAF had taken action in the past, for instance neither Cameroon nor Egypt were given points for a draw that occurred at the 2001 African Junior Championship.
But Angola defender Rui Marques insisted there was nothing untoward.
“I don’t think any team wants to take the risk of conceding a goal and maybe going out of the tournament,” he said.
“In the first half they started much better than us that’s why we were a little bit scared of conceding a goal which was a big, big risk for us.
“In the second half we were better but the football just didn’t happen.”
Algeria were the victims of one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in football history when, at the 1982 World Cup in Spain, West Germany and Austria deliberately played out a 1-0 victory to ensure that they both progressed to the next round at the expense of the North African team.
Both sides knew that if Germany won by two goals or more then Algeria would progress at the expense of Austria.
Once Germany took the lead both sides then contented themselves with knocking the ball among each other without trying to score again.
It led to FIFA changing the rules at future tournaments that ensured that the final pair of games in each group were played on the same day, with the same starting times.