SA ref to blow final whistle
The Pharaohs take on Lions of Teranga in tonight’s final
Thousands of South African football fans and Bafana Bafana players will take comfort knowing that the man in the middle for the contentious Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) final this evening will be a South African.
An almost southern African team of match officials will be led by respected and experienced World Cup referee Victor Gomes as the whistleman taking charge of the much-anticipated final between Senegal and Egypt at Olembe Stadium in Yaounde at 9pm.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has also appointed fellow South African Zakhele Siwela, who will be assisting Gomes, along with Lesotho’s Souru Phatsoane and DR Congo’s Olivier Safari Kabene.
Gomes becomes the first SA referee to officiate a Afcon final match, a reward for his consistency.
Even finalists Egypt were vouching for Gomes to handle their temperamental semi-final match against the host Cameroon as they believed Gambian referee Bakari Gassama would be biased in favour of the host nation as he was also from west Africa.
The Egyptian Football Association demanded that Gomes be the man in black for the encounter and perhaps they were in some way right, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.
The state of affairs is that Egypt will be without head coach Carlos Queiroz and assistant Roger de Sa on the bench for today’s final after former Bafana coach Queiroz was sent off by Gassama during the explosive semi-final, ending in a 3-1 penalty victory for The Pharaohs.
De Sa was suspended and fined together with several Egyptian and Moroccan players after their quarter-final encounter ended in fistic cuffs.
Back home, Bafana failed to book a berth to the 33rd edition of Afcon when sacked head coach Molefi Ntseki failed to guide the senior national team to the finals in the last hurdle in March last year, following a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Sudan.
The former Under-20 national team coach Ntseki was however not first choice for the Bafana job, given that Safa missed out on their targets who were either unavailable or pricey.
Ntseki left the hot seat after a year-and-a-half at the helm after taking over from his predecessor Englishman Stuart Baxter. Ntseki was replaced by the astute 69-year-old Belgian mentor Hugo Broos in May last year.
It is now history how Broos’ efforts to take South Africa to the Qatar World Cup in November this year was scuppered by Senegalese referee Maguette N’diaye’s pathetic handling of that World Cup qualifier with Ghana.
Banyana Banyana players have been in camp since Friday, working hard and preparing for what is going to be a very difficult and important month.
The upwardly mobile team has a tough international friendly against Zambia, before facing Algeria in the crucial qualifiers for the 2022 Africa Women Cup of Nations (Awcon).
The tournament will be held in Morocco in July.
The friendly match against Zambia’s She-polopolo will take place on Saturday in Lusaka. The match was organised for coach Desiree Ellis to sharpen the girls and take some rust off her players before they go into the lion’s den. Banyana’s last international was way back in October against Mozambique in the Awcon qualifiers.
Ellis spoke to Sunday World at the launch of the Wrong Side of the Road campaign by Diageo at Konka in Pimville, Soweto: “The friendly against Zambia will help us a great deal. It will give us information regarding the readiness of the girls because we cannot take chances going into the match against Algeria.
“We saw what happened in the Afcon tournament where Comoros has about 12 players testing positive for the Coronavirus, you just cannot predict what may happen ahead of the match.
“I was hoping to get at least 10 overseas-based players, but it looks like we will only be getting nine,” said Ellis.
The first leg against Algeria is on February 18 in South Africa and the SA Football Association has not announced the venue yet.