FIFA silence on sanction for errant South Africa a mystery

CAPE TOWN :FIFA’s reticence to dock World Cup points from South Africa for using a defaulter in a March fixture is casting a cloud and creating confusion ahead of this week’s potentially decisive round of African qualifiers.

South Africa, who admit their mistake, erroneously fielded midfielder Tebeho Mokoena in a 2-0 home win over neighbours Lesotho when he should have sat out the World Cup qualifier after two cautions in previous fixtures in Group C.

South Africa were severely embarrassed when they belatedly discovered the mistake but insist because their opponents did not protest, they will not lose the three points.

“We did something bad, we did something we shouldn’t do, but there was no complaint,” said South Africa coach Hugo Broos this week when again questioned on the matter.

But FIFA’s Disciplinary Code makes provisions for proceedings to be instigated by the administration of world football’s governing body, not only via protest, and they have previously sanctioned countries which have committed the same offence.

The 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.”

The disciplinary code also adds: “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 normal that we don’t know the situation about the points on the log table before our games this week,” said Gernot Rohr, coach of Benin, which is second behind South Africa in the standings.

“It is very, very strange.