Cape Town — Several media people spewed vitriol in the aftermath of South Africa's controversial Wafcon semi-final win over Zambia at the Mohammed V Stadium, in Casablanca, Morocco, on Monday night.
Four minutes into added time, South Africa were awarded a penalty after FIFA accredited referee Lidya Abebe was made aware of a foul on her earphones by the officials operating VAR (Video Assistant Referee).
After reviewing the play on the pitchside monitor Abebe, who refereed at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France, awarded South Africa's Banyana Banyana a penalty. Banyana Banyana winger Linda Motlhalo, aka 'Randfontein Ronaldinho', stepped up and netted from the 'spot'. Motlhalo, who plays for Swedish club Djurgardens, was also crowned 'Woman of the Match'.
The 1-0 scoreline remained unchanged in the remaining time and South Africa (58th world ranked) advanced to the Wafcon championship round for the sixth time in 14 tournaments. However, South Africa have never won the event.
Zambia (103), on the other hand, had never progressed beyond the quarter-finals in four previous tournaments, and their semi-final defeat was a bitter pill to swallow.
There is nothing conclusive in the match statistics to show that Zambia deserved to win the match. South Africa enjoyed a 61% possession advantage, but Zambia were ahead 13-9 on the shots-on-goal count. Zambia had a 16-8 foul ratio and copped two yellow cards in the match.
The replays of the injury-time incident showed that it took place on the line of the penalty area. The rule says if the ball is on or above any part of that line, it is still in the penalty area, and therefore the foul warranted a penalty.
Referee Abebe did not blow up for the foul and play continued until she stopped the match because of the message from VAR officials. Most of the people who voiced their objection to the penalty implied that the referee was biased. In this instance, Abebe certainly did not act like a biased official, who would have jumped at half a chance to award a penalty. Instead, the fouls was pointed out by the VAR officials.
Straight after the match, mostly acerbic comments were all recorded on the Council of Southern Africa Football Association's WhatsApp group chat used by 256 media people. The platform is used by COSAFA media to inform and post team selections and announcements. The media may also make requests and ask for information.
The COSAFA region is drawn from 14 countries and it includes South Africa and Zambia. The comments suggested that Zambia was hard done because South Africa won the match after scoring the decisive penalty.
Some of the comments were: Zambia robbed in broad daylight, South Africa will have themselves to blame if they fail to win this tournament with all the match officials at their disposal, this ref is an embarrassment and must never be allowed to continue messing up the beautiful game, congratulations to the referee for winning the game for South Africa, let South Africa win because that is where the referees' allegiance lies, foolish CAF, Foolish officiating, probably foolish CAF command, your (South Africa) will have been done, and many more.
In SuperSport TV's Randburg studio, the three-man panel delivered their post-match analysis. One member of the panel was Jerry Tshabalala, the Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies coach. He was hugely critical of the referee and his persona suggested that he was highly disappointed that South Africa advanced to the final.
Meanwhile, the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) have lodged an official complaint to Africa's mother body CAF over what they have described as poor officiating against the Zambia women's national team.
FAZ demanded a replay after what they termed 'poor officiating' in Zambia's semi-final loss to South Africa.
IOL Sport