The South African Football Association (SAFA) looked set to launch an appeal against a FIFA decision to order a replay of their World Cup qualifier against Senegal in November last year after the referee was found to have manipulated the result.
World soccer’s governing body on Wednesday ordered the African Zone Group D game, which South Africa won 2-1 in Polokwane, to be played again in November after referee Joseph Lamptey lost his last bid to overturn a life ban.
He was sanctioned in March by FIFA after it was found he had contrived to engineer that South Africa won the game.
No details of how he was manipulated have been given by FIFA, but South Africa have denied any involvement.
The Ghanaian official handed South Africa a dubious penalty for a non-existent handball and then allowed another goal to stand shortly thereafter from a quickly taken free-kick while he was still ordering Senegal players to retreat.
Lamptey appealed his banning and took the matter to the Court for Arbitration in Sport, which has upheld the FIFA decision, leading to Wednesday’s ordering of a replay.
“SAFA is studying the contents of the report and will issue a statement on intentions to challenge that decision,” the association said yesterday. “SAFA wishes to also state categorically that it was in no way involved with any wrongdoing related to the actions of the referee, as stated in the FIFA report.”
SAFA president Danny Jordaan has said that ordering a replay would set a dangerous precedent.
“We will not accept it,” Jordaan told reporters in May. “If you must start replaying matches where referees make mistakes, we will still be playing the league.”
“That referee was appointed by FIFA, that is a FIFA match, it’s not our match, so they must deal with their referee and that is end of story,” he said.
“It’s not our referee, we did not appoint him and we won the match,” he said.
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