FIFA’s reluctance to sanction South Africa for fielding an ineligible player has clouded the buildup to this week’s decisive round of African World Cup qualifiers, sowing confusion across Group C.
The controversy stems from South Africa’s 2-0 win over Lesotho in March, when midfielder Teboho Mokoena played despite being suspended after collecting two cautions in earlier matches. The South African Football Association admitted the error but argued that since Lesotho did not lodge a formal protest, the result should stand.
Coach Hugo Broos conceded the blunder but downplayed the consequences. "We did something bad, we did something we shouldn’t do, but there was no complaint,” he said this week.
FIFA’s disciplinary code, however, allows the governing body to act on its own without a protest, and it has previously stripped teams of points for similar offenses. The uncertainty now threatens to overshadow South Africa’s campaign at a pivotal stage, with their qualification hopes hanging in the balance.
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 says: "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. Normally, South Africa should lose three points, and they should go to Lesotho. But nobody knows why they (FIFA) did not take this decision,” he told Reuters.
Unanswered
Repeated queries to world soccer’s governing body in Zurich have gone unanswered in the five months since the incident.
Rohr knows better than most the ramifications of fielding an ineligible player. In the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, when he was Nigeria’s coach, they forfeited the point from a 1-1 draw in Algeria for fielding Shehu Abdullahi, who was suspended.
"We didn’t know he was suspended, and we lost the points in the disciplinary committee,” Rohr said.
With their win still intact, South Africa lead the standings with 13 points, five ahead of Rwanda and Benin and six ahead of Nigeria, whom they host in a crunch game in Bloemfontein next Tuesday. Lesotho have six points and Zimbabwe sit last on four.
Losing three points would reduce South Africa’s advantage to two and lift Lesotho into second place, setting up a nervy round of matches when the six teams play on Friday and again next Tuesday.
The teams vying for qualification want clarity. "The world still awaits FIFA’s decision,” the Nigerian Football Federation said on its website this week. Rohr added: "FIFA should now very quickly give the decision.”
The group winner qualifies automatically for next year’s finals in North America.