By Boluwatife Ezekiel Olaleye
The Burkina Faso Football Federation has challenged FIFA’s ruling to replay a World Cup qualifying game because the referee was corrupt.
Burkina Faso filed an appeal against a November replay of South Africa’s 2-1 win over Senegal last year, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said yesterday.
The federation called the ruling “abuse of power” by a FIFA World Cup organising committee panel.
FIFA had never before ordered a game to be played again because of match-fixing. Its investigation found that neither South Africa nor Senegal were involved in the fixing, and the referee was likely manipulating the match for a betting scam.
Ghanaian referee Joseph Lamptey was banned for life for awarding the penalty for a non-existent handball that let South Africa lead 1-0. When sport’s highest court rejected Lamptey’s appeal, FIFA followed up this month by wiping the original game from the record.
Burkina Faso still top the qualifying group on goal difference over Cape Verde with two games left. Senegal are still one point back in the four-team pool though now with three games to play.
Only the group winners advance to the World Cup, and Senegal can go top using the replay in November.
CAS has not set an appeal hearing date.
Burkina Faso’s federation acted after South Africa, who are in last place with one point, decided not to use their right of appeal.