World Cup qualifier to be replayed after referee is banned
September 6, 2017
South Africa and Senegal must replay a match that first took place last November, after FIFA banned the referee for life for match fixing. The decision could have huge implications, particularly for Senegal.
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FIFA says the game, which Senegal lost 2-1, is null and void and must be replayed in the upcoming November international break.
Ghanaian referee Joseph Lamptey awarded South Africa a controversial penalty in the 2016 match for handball but replays showed the ball hit Senegal's Kalidou Koulibaly on the knee.
Lamptey received his lifetime ban for "unlawfully influencing the match result" in March but the decision to replay the game was only announced on Wednesday. The ban has been upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Full details of Lamptey's case have not yet been published and it hasn't been confirmed if a betting scam was the reason suspected for Lamptey's decision to award the spot kick.
Lamptey has previously been suspended by the Confederation of African Football for allowing an important goal to stand in an African Champions League semifinal when it had clearly been punched in the net.
With six points each, Burkina Faso and Cape Verde lead the Group D table after four of six matches. With a repeat game now scheduled, Senegal has an opportunity to gain five points. Without the three points from the 2-1 game against Senegal, South Africa will only have one point.
The five winners of the Africa groups will qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Famous footballing felons
Mexican soccer star Rafael Marquez has been accused of working with a drug cartel. He's far from the first footballer to make headlines for off-the-pitch misdemeanors. Here are some of his criminal colleagues.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/U. Deck/dpa
Rafael 'Rafa' Marquez
Marquez, captain of the Mexican national team, stands accused by the US treasury department of being a "front person" for the cartel of infamous drug trafficker Raul Flores Hernandez. The treasury department claims he is closely connected to Flores Hernandez, but Marquez has categorically denied "any involvement with this organization."
Image: Reuters/H. Romero
Lionel Messi
The five-time FIFA World Player of the Year was handed a 21-month prison sentence for tax fraud in 2016. However, in Spain jail terms undr two years can be served under probation. Together with his father, he was convicted of defrauding Spain of €4.1 million ($4.6 million) in taxes and fined 1.7 million euros on top.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/D. Ochoa De Olza
Diego Maradona
One of the most famous players of all time, Maradona led Argentina to victory at the 1986 World Cup. but later became mired in controversy. In 1991 he was banned from football for 15 months for testing positive for cocaine. His Italian club Napoli immediately fired him. In 1998, he was handed a suspended jail sentence for shooting journalists with an air rifle.
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Breno
Former Bayern Munich defender Breno Vinicius Rodrigues Borges, known as Breno, was convicted of arson and sentenced to three years and nine months in prison. In September 2011, the Brazilian footballer burnt down the mansion he rented in a Munich suburb. Breno said he was drunk the night of the crime. After an early release on Christmas 2014, he returned to his former club in Brazil, FC Sao Paulo.
Image: Reuters
Joey Barton
A player with a history of assault, the English midfielder beat up his Manchester City team mate Ousmane Dabo so badly in 2007 he had to go to hospital. Barton was given a four-month suspended sentence. In 2008, he was sentenced to six months in jail for attacking a man at a bus station. At his last club Burnley, he was banned from football for 18 months in a charge related to betting on matches.
Image: Getty Images/A. Livesey
Helmut Rahn
Rahn (pictured on the right) is a soccer legend in Germany. In 1954, he scored the winning goal against Hungary in the World Cup final - and Germany became world champions for the first time. In 1958, Rahn had to spend two weeks in jail after drunkenly driving his car into a building site and hitting and kicking the police officers who tried to arrest him.
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Rene Higuita
The former Colombia international keeper is also known as El Loco, or The Madman. The nickname comes from his daring maneuvers on the pitch, like the scorpion kick save. But his life off the pitch has been crazy, too: Higuita was friends with Pablo Escobar and tested positive for cocaine in 2002 and 2004. In 1993, he spent seven months in jail after acting as a go-between in a kidnapping.
Image: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images
Bruno Fernandes de Souza
De Souza's story is without doubt the most gruesome. In 2013, the Brazilian keeper was convicted of ordering the murder of his lover, possibly because she hadn't aborted his baby. He then allegedly fed her body to his dogs. He was released on parole in February 2017 and was signed by Boa Esporte. However, his release was overturned and he is currently back in detention.
