BLOWING THE WHISTLE ON SAFA FOUL PLAY!
The refereeing saga in South African football seems hot and uncontrollable. Coach Pitso Mosimane of Mamelodi Sundowns is the victim of every football fanatic in South Africa due to his questioning of certain decisions. SAFA have finally noticed the danger caused by referees on clubs. I’m shocked by SAFAs head of referees Mr Tenda Masikhwa’s statement in Soccer Laduma issue 1095, where he said, “Sometimes some coaches benefit from the errors of referees and they do not complain. Sometimes they feel hard done by and then they complain.” His statement sounded so reckless, in the midst of a crisis nogal, because referees’ decisions are costing teams big time. SAFA is not ashamed of what happened to Downs against Cape Town City, where the latter scored an offside goal and won the game. Against Bloemfontein Celtic, Lebohang Maboe’s goal was incorrectly ruled offside. In the Bidvest Wits game, Sibusiso Vilakazi was fouled in the box; the opponent went directly to him, not to the ball. In the same game, Darren Keet handled the ball out of the box, denying Vilakazi a scoring chance, and the referee ignored the incident. All of these, Mr Masikhwa, benefitted other coaches. Is there an agenda by the referee’s committee that we need to know about? Terah Maqepula, Mount Fletcher Regarding your Siya Special of Soccer Laduma edition 1095, I agree with the content and it’s not only at PSL level where match officials have payment issues with SAFA. I am currently, and for the past nine years, a match official at the ABC Motsepe League (previously known as the Vodacom League), which is sponsored by Mr Patrice Motsepe. Well, we (Western Cape) haven’t been paid our match fees for the past five seasons and every time we ask about payments, they have lots of stories but never pay us. I even let a law firm send Head of Referees, Mr Tenda Masikhwa, a few e-mails, but then he directs them somewhere else. It’s consistent, calculated moves of shifting responsibility from one to the next person. I mean, it’s not fair! All of them (SAFA officials in office) get paid every month and the match officials are doing the hard work and don’t even get what was promised or due to them. My question is where is the money you owe the referees? Or must all referees on all panels go on strike and see if you guys get paid while there’s no matches? I think SAFA must also be investigated as to why they can’t pay all the match officials what they must pay them. No wonder our football, including refereeing, is not of the best standard, because everyone wants their hands in the cookie jar instead of thinking of the plight or interest of the citizens of this beautiful South Africa. Anonymous Referee Quick One-Two’s Ha, ha, ha, now I know why Chairman Irvin Khoza alluded to the fact that Thamsanqa Gabuza is an integral part of Orlando Pirates. The guy is too hilarious. You would be forgiven for thinking he is Jacob Sakala’s son or nephew. His stories on ‘In Touch With…’ kept me in stitches. Please let’s have more of Gabuza, Naughty