That South African football farce

CHEATING has been on in football, like in any other game, from time immemorial. Players, even the best of them, will cheat where they can, but the ludicrous event that took place in South Africa recently must be confounding even to regular cheats. A South African club in the lower division of the country’s football system, Matiyasi FC,  so goes the story, has been banned for life after scoring 59 goals in one match. Yes, 59 goals. The scandalous scoreline was of course not without context: the club was vying for promotion to the Provincial ABC Motsepe League. And so it beat Nsami Mighty Birds 59-1. The scoreline was not even intelligently stage-managed: 41 of the goals were own-goals.

The comedy did not end there, as a player who was recorded to have been given a red card in the first half proceeded to score a goal in the second half.  Naturally, the South African Football Association (SAFA) did not take the incident lying down.  SAFA’s regional office in Limpopo summoned both Matiyasi FC and Nsami Mighty Birds to a Disciplinary Committee hearing on 25 May  in Giyani. The result: both teams were charged and found guilty of corruption and contravening the association’s statutes. They were permanently banned from all football activities while the officials of both teams were also given a five-year suspension within the region. And rather ludicrously, there were other culprits as well: in another match from the same league, Shivulani Dangerous Tigers beat Kototo Happy Boys 33-1 on the same date. Seven own goals were recorded in that encounter. The teams were also found guilty of contravening SAFA rules and handed a life-ban from all football activities.

These clubs must have been basketball clubs before transforming into football clubs, or perhaps they forgot they were playing football. Or are they owned by big-time betting individuals? And did the clubs take their influence from Nigeria? We may never know, but there can be no forgetting the scandal that erupted in Nigerian football in 2013. Desperate for promotion to the lowest tier of the Nigerian Nationwide League Division, two Nigerian football clubs, Plateau United Feeders and Police Machine FC, apparently went on an overdrive to stage a goals-fest. By half-time, Plateau United was 7-0 up against Akurba FC, while Police Machine had overpowered Bubayaro FC by six goals to nil. If the first half was questionable, the second half devolved into pure farce. Police Machine scored 61 goals to end the game at 67-0, while Plateau United recorded a haul of 72 goals. The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) was predictably livid with rage. All the players and coaches from each of the four clubs were banned from football for life, and each club was slammed with a 10-year ban from the domestic league. The NFF also recommended banning all the referees involved in the charade. As it turned out, though, the sanction meant nothing to one of the clubs, Bubayaro FC. It was disbanded by its owner soon  after the game.

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To say the very least, the recent incident in South Africa is scandalous. The fact that the scandal took place in a lower division is no excuse. Indeed, all other things being equal, that division should naturally feed the higher divisions with quality players as break-out stars impose themselves on the game and in the consciousness of club owners and fans. If 59 goals were scored in a single game of 45 minutes in either half, then just how many games were scored per minute? If any country had players that could readily score such number of goals in any game, it would definitely not lose out in any World Cup qualifying campaign! In any case, the fact that corrupt football officials could demonstrate such an appalling low quality of officiating shows that rather than abating, corruption is alive and kicking in African football. The incident in South Africa, like its Nigerian herald of 2013, feels like a bad dream. It should never have happened. It is beyond embarrassing.

If any club decides to keep the rules guiding football in abeyance, then it should be booted out permanently from the game. There is no reason to expect clubs which cheated their way into the top divisions to remain there. Such clubs will inevitably succumb to the superior firepower of tested clubs. In other words, they will only succeed in embarrassing themselves as their vulnerabilities are pried open by superior teams. Across the continent, players and teams which tried to cheat their way to the top have always suffered catastrophic consequences for their dishonesty.  Football is a game of skills, practice and discipline where yesterday’s glory is irrelevant.

We commend SAFA for promptly responding to the scandal and imposing sanctions as prescribed by the country’s football statues. That is the way to go. It shows that the association will not tolerate bringing the game into disrepute. In this connection, we urge the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to constantly moderate the actions of its sub-systems and encourage associations that play by the rules. Football on the continent can only get better with vigilance by the governing authorities.