SA have been stripped of three points in their World Cup qualifying campaign for fielding an ineligible player, denting their hopes of reaching the 2026 finals.
Fifa said on Monday that its disciplinary committee had found SA guilty of playing midfielder Teboho Mokoena in a 2-0 home win over Lesotho in March when he should have sat out the qualifier after two cautions in previous Group C games.
Lesotho have been awarded a 3-0 victory, with Bafana stripped of the points and fined $12,536.04, while Mokoena was given a warning.
Benin now top the standings on goal difference, level with SA on 14 points with two games left.
Nigeria, who were the group favourites, are three points behind with Rwanda. Only the group winners qualify directly for the World Cup, though the runners-up have a chance to win a berth albeit through an arduous playoff process.
In the penultimate round of qualifiers on October 10, Benin visit Rwanda, Lesotho host Nigeria and Bafana take on Zimbabwe.
The final set of games on October 14 sees SA hosting Rwanda while Benin are at neighbouring Nigeria.
Embarrassment for SA
Losing the points is a major embarrassment for the SA Football Association, with coach Hugo Broos already admitting: “We did something bad, we did something we shouldn’t do."
But Fifa’s handling of the matter has come in for criticism as it took world soccer’s governing body almost seven months to settle a routine matter.
It had not held a disciplinary hearing before the last round of World Cup qualifiers, to the ire of the other countries.
“It is not normal that we don’t know the situation about the points on the log table before our games [in August],” said Benin coach Gernot Rohr.
Fifa did not respond to multiple inquiries from March onwards about possible sanctions for SA, leaving the matter hanging until earlier in September when the body announced it was opening an investigation.
Rules on ineligible players explained
Fifa’s rules state:
- If a person receives a caution in two separate matches of the same Fifa competition, they are automatically suspended from the next match in that competition
- If a team fields a player who is not eligible to participate [due to suspension, registration issues, nationality, etc], the match is automatically forfeited
- The default result is a 3-0 loss, unless the actual result was even more disadvantageous to the offending team
It is not the first time a country has been docked points for fielding an ineligible player in African World Cup qualification.
In the 2018 qualifiers, Fifa awarded Algeria a 3-0 win as a result of Nigeria fielding the ineligible Shehu Abdullahi, after their match ended in a 1-1 draw.
Ahead of the 2014 finals in Brazil, the Cape Verde Islands lost out on a playoff spot after using Fernando Varela in their shock group win against Tunisia. He was still suspended so Tunisia went through to the playoffs instead of the islanders.
Reuters
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