Johannesburg – Two unpalatable incidents grabbed my attention this past week.
The first unfolded during a third division amateur ranks game, run by Safa, and the second scenario played itself out in a PSL top-flight match.
Both happenings, to say the least, were distasteful.
They were not good advertisements for our domestic football that prides itself in fully adhering to the Fifa, CAF, and Safa statutes at all times.
But the one that took the cake occurred in KwaZulu-Natal when a match official’s life was threatened by club officials and fans of Umvoti and Westville Classic.
Both clubs campaign in the ABC Motsepe League, bankrolled by CAF president and mining magnate Patrice Motsepe and named after his late father.
As the club officials and fans descended on the defenseless referee, charging and attacking him for allegedly being biased, it is still not clear, pending a Safa investigation, what actually led to the referee’s life being threatened.
Shocking, despicable, and ugly, that is how, to sum up, the incident was captured on video and still trending on social media.
As things stand, tough sanctioning must follow, and if need be, the guilty parties must be banned for life.
In the next episode, inept DStv Premiership outfit Marumo Gallants failed to bring along a second and third kit for their away match against AmaZulu on Wednesday, leading to the game being abandoned at King Zwelithini Stadium in Durban, and then played the following day, ending goalless.
Controversially so, Limpopo-based Gallants failed once again to come up with an away kit different from that of AmaZulu, who should be commended for agreeing to wear their white away kit.
And what has become a sticky point in this saga of the identical kits is that the match commissioner Vincent Alie, fourth official Xolani Hlatshwayo, and the three-match officials – referee Christopher Kistoor and his two assistants Sibusiso Sisilana a Kamohelo Ramutsindela – were all blind to allow kick-off.
It’s an unbelievable bungle that must not be tolerated, now and in the future.
Fifa is frowning on us.
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