FIFA, the world’s football governing body has banned three former South African Football Association (SAFA) officials over alleged match-fixing before the 2010 World Cup.
Former SAFA chief executive officer Leslie Sedibe has been punished with a five-year ban from all football activities as well as a fine of 20,000 Swiss francs while Steve Goddard and Adeel Carelse, who each served as SAFA’s head of referees, have been given suspensions of two years.
The trio follow former SAFA official Lindile ‘Ace’ Kika who was banned for six years in October last year and will now wait until alongside them as investigations proceed.
A SAFA statement in 2012 said of the national team’s pre-World Cup friendlies against Guatemala and Colombia: “The FIFA report addresses the question as to whether one or more of the pre-World Cup friendly matches was fixed and finds compelling evidence that this was indeed the case.”
South Africa’s 5-0 win over Guatemala in May 2010 is siad to have been controversial after three questionable penalties awarded by Nigerien referee Ibrahim Chaibou, meanwhile Bafana Bafana’s 2-1 victory against Colombia four days earlier had also seen all three goals come from the spot.
