Johannesburg – SAFA CEO Tebogo Motlanthe said that they are weighing their options on whether they still want to pursue their case against FIFA.
This comes after the mother body furnished them with detailed explanations as to why their protest against Ghana was thrown out of the window.
On Monday night, the Chairman of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee (the Committee) wrote to SAFA and said that they have thoroughly considered all evidence and arguments submitted and FIFA has provided the clarity that SAFA failed to meet three procedural requirements in their protest.
This involves around: (i) no written protest was submitted to the match commissioner, (ii) the Protest was not lodged in a timely manner, and (iii) no protest fee had been paid.
In the letter that the Sunday World has seen, the way FIFA has detailed the reasons for dismissing SAFA’s case is very unsatisfactory and suspicious.
It means the comprehensive technical report submitted by SA retired Ngcobo was never considered.
The decision to dismiss was influenced by the tardiness of SAFA administrators but not the technical outcomes from the match itself.
Said Motlanthe: “It was a complaint and not a protest and that’s why we took the matter to the DC and not other FIFA channels.
They did not even read the merits of our technical report argument. You cannot protest over a referee’s decision.
It was a complaint against the conduct of the referee and we believe the referee manipulated the outcome of the game. We will look at the situation and let the public know of our final decision,” he said.
The South Africans had lodged a protest after they felt that the 2022 World Cup qualifying match against Ghana was fixed.
Senegalese referee Ndiaye Marguette awarded Ghana a shocking penalty in the Cape Coast and the goal was enough to send the Black Stars to the next step of the qualifiers.
Safa then requested a rematch and that resulted in an ugly verbal exchange with the enraged Ghana Football Association who also threatened to take the matter up with SAFA.
Also read: Why Safa’s protest was dismissed – Fifa’s full report
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