September 8 – South Africa are considering appealing against FIFA’s decision to order a replay of their World Cup qualifier against Senegal 10 months ago over “match manipulation” by the referee.
The South African Football Association (SAFA) say FIFA’s decision is unprecedented and unfair since they had no involvement in any wrongdoing.
FIFA said in March that Ghanaian referee Joseph Lamptey had been thrown out after finding him guilty of unlawfully influencing South Africa’s 2-1 win in African Group D in November 2016. The life ban was this week upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
FIFA did not give further details but the Confederation of African Football (CAF) said at the time that Lamptey had wrongly awarded a penalty to the South Africans for a non-existent handball. The South African case is that they are also effectively penalised which could hit their hopes of making it to the World Cup next year.
It is believed Lamptey was acting on the orders of match-fixers organising illegal betting scams. FIFA has not provided full details of the case against the referee but said in a statement to The Associated Press that its findings against Lamptey took into account “reports of irregular betting activities from various international betting monitoring companies.”
Norman Arendse, chairman of SAFA’s legal committee, said there was no reason why South Africa should pay the price for FIFA’s decision to appoint Lamptey for the game when he had a history of suspicious performances.
“This is the part that hurts us,” Arendse told AP. “The referee is chosen by the FIFA referees committee. So why don’t they take responsibility? … Why did they appoint him?”
Arendse says SAFA accepts that a replay would be fair but only if all Group D matches are replayed.
“We’re grappling for answers and asking FIFA for them before we decide whether to take the matter forward,” he said.
“SAFA cannot accept (the game was manipulated) because we have got absolutely no details of the alleged manipulation, what the nature of it was and what it all involved,” he told BBC World Service.
“Is (the referee) just a corrupt individual? Was he bribed by a third party outside of the match to influence the outcome? We just don’t know.
“That is the most unpalatable thing for us – to accept an outcome to which we should have been party. We’ve never ever been called upon to put our side of the story in relation to the game.”
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