Jordaan: Bet your bottom dollar, we’ll fight this to the end
IN the aftermath of the raging storm around Senegalese referee Maguette N’diaye, the president of Safa Danny Jordaan has been left perplexed why all the officials who were appointed for Ghana’s home match were from the same region.
N’diaye awarded Ghana a questionable penalty which eventually proved decisive in the Black Stars’ 1-0 win over Bafana Bafana in a World Cup qualifier on Sunday. The supporting match officials were all fellow-countrymen of N’diaye: Samba Elhadji Malick (first assistant), Camara Djibril (second assistant) and Gueye Daouda (fourth referee).
The rest of the officials were all drawn from the same the west Africa region; Lawson-hogban Latre-kayi Edzona from Togo was the referee assessor, and Nigeria's Kachalla
Kalli was the match commissioner. Together with Ghana these countries all fall in the West African Football Union, a confederation of Caf
Jordaan said the matter of appointing officials for a team from the same region raised the potential for a conflict of interest. Caf would have made the appointments.
“We (Safa) are saying when a match involves a team from west Africa, you can’t have a referee from the same region,” said Jordaan in a radio interview.
“We will fight this matter until the end. It is why immediately after the match we informed the match commissioner that we are challenging this outcome.
“We feel that this match was manipulated that carries a sanction of five years. What we have done is make a detailed analysis of the match. We have found that 89% of the decisions that were deemed wrong, were made against Bafana
Bafana. It can’t be right.”
Now that the adjudicatory chamber of Fifa have acknowledged South Africa’s formal complaint, a host of investigation mechanisms will come into play. Fifa have invited Ghana to make a submission, if they wish, to the secretariat of the Fifa Disciplinary Committee by tomorrow. Next Tuesday, the matter will come before the Fifa Disciplinary Committee and they will decide if the investigation should be ongoing.
Safa’s comprehensive report relating to the performance of the match officials is pretty damning and pointed to a blatant bias against Bafana. Assuming the Fifa Disciplinary Committee agrees with the findings of Safa it will make further investigations. At this stage, Fifa will enlist the help of law enforcement agencies. Fifa also have their staff which regularly take a comprehensive look at betting.
Initially, it will be established if an unusually high number of betting companies offered odds on the matches. This was not a World Cup final match so the interest should not go beyond the ordinary.
The range of bets on a match is also of interest. There may be odds for usual aspects like goals scored, penalties in the match, yellow card, draw, win and then something out of the ordinary like red cards. It is not normal to feel confident that there will be three red cards in a match.
The betting patterns during the match will also raise suspicion. Investigators may find there was a sudden influx of money for a penalty at a certain stage. In the case of last Sunday’s match, there may have been a spike in bets just before the penalty was awarded.
There may have been a spike for a Ghana win bet after the penalty was scored. If by this time of the investigation there is still a suspicion that the match officials manipulated the result, the source of the money for bets can be established.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Football Association yesterday slammed Safa for setting the wheels in motion for a replay. The GFA said it was “shocking, irresponsible, and outright disrespectful” that Safa had “spread falsehoods to the media”.