EFA TO RELEGATE REFEREES

MBABANE – The Eswatini Football Association (EFA) has a programme in place to curb the violence in elite league games associated with poor refereeing.

The recently-concluded 2022/23 MTN Premier League season has witnessed a number of commotions related to poor refereeing. This got teams on the wrong side of law and they had to part with a lump sum of money. This season saw the country’s sworn-rivals Mbabane Highlanders and Mbabane Swallows visiting the EFA Disciplinary Committee (DC), chaired by top Lawyer Thuani Sibandze, on more than one occasion. This acts by the teams which are frowned upon by the 2022/23 MTN Premier League Rules and Regulations have been noticed by the EFA, as well as the Premier League of Eswatini (PLE). The former has taken drastic moves to try and stop violence in matches.

This was revealed by EFA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Frederick Mngomezulu on national radio, the Eswatini Broadcasting and Information Services Sports Show, hosted by Siphesihle ‘Sihlabani’ Nxumalo, when responding to questions of what was the mother body of local football was doing to curb violence in games. “We got reports from different sectors on the poor officiating of games by our referees; the relevant stakeholders met on numerous occasions. That made EFA special committee come out with a concrete programme, which we will announce before the start of the new season,” Mngomezulu explained.

magnitude

According to Mngomezulu, the programme would be a guide for referees on how to handle their work and it would be categorised according to the magnitude of the games. “If it happens that a referee is found that his or her officiating in a game is not at the expected standard, that referees will be relegated to another category. This is called demotion in their language,” he said. He also said this would be after the referees were put into an intense empowerment on refereeing, as it would be unfair to enact the new programme without educating them. He said they were working with other partners outside the country to help educate the referees. He further said what was now a paramount objective for EFA was to have the local football broadcast live on television and to introduce new technologies which were witnessed in some countries, which were bit lower than the video refereeing assistant (VAR) which is called video analysis (VA). Mngomezulu said the VA would come in handy in determining a decision made by the referee, especially controversial ones during the game.

Meanwhile, in neighbouring  South Africa, that country’s football mother body, SAFA, suspended four Premier Soccer League (PSL) referees early  this year. They were identified as Luxolo Badi, Cledwin Baloyi, Tshidiso Maruping and Simukele Jali, who were put on ice by the South African Football Association (SAFA) in February this year. They were sent to the rehabilitation programme in February by SAFA after they had committed errors that left clubs fuming. Badi and Jali disallowed a legitimate goal when AmaZulu midfielder Hendrick Ekstein thought he had scored what was an equaliser against Royal AM at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on February 25. Ekstein tucked home the ball in the second half, but Jali raised his flag for offside, raising fury from AmaZulu management and coach Romain Folz after the game.

It was a wrong call as the former Kaizer Chiefs midfielder was put onside since the ball did not come from his fellow teammates, but from a Royal AM player, in which by FIFA law he was onside even if he was in an offside position. Usuthu management then lodged an official complaint to the PSL that they felt the referees were no longer making mistakes, but there was more to it, especially for AmaZulu this season, which was confirmed by the club president Sandile Zungu. Baloyi and Maruping were also wrong in applying the law after shock officiating in their matches in January.

Baloyi was the first assistant when he denied Swallows FC a clear goal against TS Galaxy at Dobsonville Stadium. He raised his flag early, indicating that Waseem Isaacs was offside before Keegan Allen scored what could have been the winning goal at the end. That left Swallows players and technical staff furious, leading then coach Ernst Middendorp’s assistant Musa Nyatama being sent off for using unkind words to Baloyi at the end. Maruping got his decision wrong when he awarded Golden Arrows a penalty against SuperSport United at Princess Magogo Stadium on January 7. Then SAFA Review Committee decided to suspend them for a foreseeable time to referee in the lower divisions and also in the DStv Diski Challenge, just like Badi did recently with Cape Town and Orlando Pirates.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: