Suspended referees remain in limbo
BG SPORT Earlier this year, catastrophe fell on the highly rated local referees, Joshua Bondo, Mogomotsi Morakile, Kitso Sibanda and Tshepo Mukani Gobagoba who got suspended from football by Confederation of African Football (CAF), following reports of inaccurate submissions in a match report during the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2024 qualifier match.
The Botswana Football Association (BFA), in a move that raised a few eyebrows, added salt to injury and opted to indefinitley suspend the said officials from taking part in any local football activities. “As a result of this sanction by CAF, the BFA upholds the spirit of ethics and integrity in football, and has decided to suspend forthwith the concerned referees from domestic match scheduling until further notice. In the meantime, internal disciplinary investigations will commence,” the BFA said in a statement released on April 14th.
For the assistant referees, it was expected that they could soon take centre stage with the Botswana Football Association (BFA) expected to reinstate them after they completed their suspension, CAF have also not made any contact with the said officials. The quartet officiated the match between Rwanda and Benin on the 23rd of March where they were accused of being inattentive and the oversight by CAF was deemed as a serious offence which compromised the integrity of football.
Failure to capture the booking of Rwanda star player during the first leg of AFCON qualifier between Rwanda and Benin proved detrimental in their careers as the player in mention featured in the return leg in Kigali though he was supposed to be serving suspension. The sprinter Joshua Bondo, as affectionally known in local football, is serving a six months suspension whereas his assistants were slapped with a three months ban which elapsed last month.
“We haven’t been updated on anything regarding our status now that we have served our suspension, towards the end of last month we were allowed to partake in a referee’s course that was done at the association but other than that we remain in the dark on our situation. We are not even sure whether we will officiate in the coming local league games, we can’t even officiate pre-season games,” one of the referees told this publication.
He further expressed their frustrations over how the matter has been handled and revealed that they were contemplating to quit their profession.
“It really has been difficult, some of us are even thinking of exploring other means to earn a living because where we are now there are no signs that the situation could get better,” he added. Although CAF have not yet issued any statement regarding the reinstatement of the local match officials, this publication is reliably informed that, one of the assistants has been assigned to be on duty in the upcoming preliminary round of CAF champions’ league and CAF Confederations cup.
The BFA remains tight lipped on the matter, and when contacted for a comment, the associations’ Chief Executive Officer, Mfolo Mfolo would not divulge much details to this publication but rather responded by stating that, “we will have to wait for clearance from CAF.”
For Bondo, the suspension is likely to prove costly and have him miss out on the opportunity to be selected to officiate at the eagerly anticipated Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2023 finals which are slated for Côte d'Ivoire early next year, the selections will be made before his suspension elapse in October 2023.
Bondo is also still awaiting the verdict of the association following the infamous audio clip which was believed to be carrying contents relating to match-fixing.
The association sent out a three men commission of enquiry team to investigate the matter but, despite the report having been submitted to the BFA leadership over a month ago, the senior officials at Lekidi are yet to make any ruling over the matter.