Controversial refereeing
performances at the African Cup
of Nations should not detract
from an overall improvement in
the standard of officiating, Issa
Hayatou, the president of the Confederation of African Football
(CAF) said on Friday. Coaches and players have been
angry about bizarre refereeing
performances at several key
matches at the tournament in
South Africa but Hayatou
believes that overall the standard has been good. "Overall we are satisfied but we
experienced some mistakes with
the referees especially at the
semifinal between Ghana and
Burkina Faso, and there were
other errors too...also at the Tunisia v Togo match," he told a
media round-table meeting on
Friday. CAF took the unusual step on
Thursday of announcing that
Tunisian referee Slim Jdedi had
been suspended following his
handling of the game in which he
awarded Ghana a soft penalty, denied Burkina Faso two far
more obvious penalties and ruled
out what appeared to be a
legitimate Burkina Faso goal. Burkina Faso won the match 3-2
on penalties after it had finished
1-1 following extra time. Jdedi's most contentious decision
came three minutes from the
end of extra time when he
showed Burkinabe winger
Jonathan Pitroipa a second
yellow card and sent him off for diving in the penalty area which
means, pending appeal, that
Pitroipa is ruled out of Sunday's
final against Nigeria. Television replays clearly showed
that Pitroipa was fouled in the
incident and that Jdedi had a
clear view of the foul. Other refereeing foibles included
Ghana's goalkeeper receiving a
yellow card instead of red for a
handball outside his area in what
was a blatant professional foul
against Mali. South African referee Daniel
Bennett booked the wrong
player, awarded two soft
penalties and denied another
obvious spot kick when Togo met
Tunisia in Nelspruit. Egyptian referee Gehad Grisha
awarded a highly controversial
penalty to Zambia in the last
minute of their group match
against Nigeria and subsequently
was not given another game to officiate in the tournament. After the match the Nigerian FA
sent a strongly-worded protest
to CAF, and Nigerian goalkeeper
Vincent Enyeama described the
call as "one of the worst
decisions in the history of football". Enyeama received no penalty or
reprimand from CAF for his
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