Safa have leg to stand on in their appeal, says referee Ncobo

Former professional referee and now television pundit Ace “VAR” Ncobo believes Safa’s case in their appeal against Bafana Bafana’s loss to Ghana could be solid. 

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Bafana were booted out of the World Cup qualifiers when they lost 1-0 to Ghana in the last game of the group stages on Sunday. The loss came courtesy of a disputable penalty decision from which Ghana scored. 

Speaking to SuperSport TV on Monday night, Ncobo said he had looked through the footage of the game and made a report which he had handed to Safa.

“It took me five hours and 17 minutes just to analyse the first half. I will do the second half tomorrow (Tuesday) because I only got the footage this morning (Monday). 

“Article 18 of the Fifa disciplinary code speaks about manipulation of a match… Many people think you can simply write to Fifa and say ‘no, this referee was poor so let’s replay the match’. 

“It doesn’t work like that. You have to prove that the result of the match was manipulated one way or another, not because of poor performance (by the referee),” he said.  

Ncobo said while the referee’s poor officiating cannot be grounds for appeal, but Safa do have something they can use in their favour.

“I have already submitted a report to Safa based on the analysis of the first half that I have done. In that report I said ‘you can’t write to Fifa based on poor performance’. That is because if it is poor performance, it is not a problem and you cannot appeal that. 

“But do you then differentiate poor performance from manipulation? And this is what I got out of the analysis of the first half. There was a major incident per minute – and that is a game changing incident where a team gains possession from whatever decision was taken.  

“The number of ignored, or unseen, for whatever reason and I don’t want to speculate on the reasons because that’s for Safa to investigate. In 17 of the 45 incidents, the whistle was never blown. Only 28 were awarded. 

“The number of spo-on decisions of the 45 was 17. 

“That means only 37.8% of the decisions made in the first half were correct. You cannot have a referee at that level who has an error rate of over 60%. But again even with that, you cannot take it to Fifa and say the game must be replayed. 

“You have to investigate and analyse if there was a pattern of bias. That is when we looked at decisions that went against Bafana Bafana. 25 of the 28 that were given, went against Bafana. 

“Poor performance means that the referee had 51 v 49% incorrect decisions. But 89% incorrect decisions against one team means there is a pattern of bias which equals manipulation of the results. 

“That is the leg that Safa can stand on. What is the reason behind that pattern of bias is not for me to say. I believe Safa have additional evidence that they have collected. There are specific issues relating to the awarding of penalties,” said the former ace referee.