Moorosi Tsiane
It was really cold last Sunday, so going to Setsoto Stadium to watch LDF, who are at the summit of the Vodacom Premier League, play third-placed Lioli, took a lot of heart.
Regardless of the chilly and rainy weather, fans still made it to the stadium to watch one of the country’s biggest football matches.
Like I said in my last column, this was a match I wouldn’t miss for anything, particularly after Lioli had vowed to hand LDF their first defeat of the 2014/15 football season.
And true to their promise, the Mosholu Mokhothu-coached outfit not only beat the army outfit, but did so in comprehensive fashion, hammering the soldiers 3-0 courtesy of goals from Shetsane Ramoseeka, Tšoanelo Koetle and Montoeli Sonopo.
However, I was really concerned by some of the decisions made by the match officials of the day, which were so terrible they had the potential to spark violence among the fans.
I will mention just two incidents, which I believe the match officials did not get right at all.
Sohle-Sohle, as LDF are popularly known, were denied a very clear goal when Mafoa-foa Lephoto’s header from a rebound off ‘Matli ‘Matli’s well-taken set-piece that unfortunately hit the cross bar, was ruled offside.
The laws of football clearly explain a player can only be penalised for offside if, by the time the ball is released by his teammate, he was already in an offside position.
And from where I was sitting during Sunday’s match, I was in line with the Lioli defence when ‘Matli took that free kick.
And when the free kick was taken, Lephoto was still on-side, but was quick to follow up the shot hence why after the ball hit the post, it found him alone inside the six-yard box as the defence stood watching. He was not offside, so the match officials were wrong to disallow his effort.
The second incident was when LDF fullback Koporale Motanyane head-butted his fellow defender, Kopano Tseka, in an off-the-ball incident.
With the pressure the LDF defence was under at the time, I think Motanyane just lost it there and could have seriously injured Tseka, yet the incident went unpunished.
I think the reason our referees failed to pick that incident was due to poor positioning because if they had been in the correct position, they could have easily spotted this incident.
I know referees are human and are therefore, bound to make mistakes just like every single one of us. But my sincere plea is the mistakes have to be minimal to ensure the volatile among us don’t have an excuse to become violent in protest at such blatant and inept officiating.
On another note, I was shocked to learn that A Division referees and their assistants have still not been paid their monies from last season.
This kind of mismanagement should not be condoned, so whoever was supposed to have disbursed the funds should be held accountable because how would he or she feel, if they were not paid their salaries?
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