SAFA head of referees Abdul Ebrahim says they will not give up on error-prone official Luxolo Badi who has come under fire in recent weeks.
Badi has been put aside for yet another mistake after he failed to award Kaizer Chiefs a blatant penalty in front of his view in the MTN8 semi-finals second leg at Lucas Moripe Stadium against Mamelodi Sundowns last Saturday.
Chiefs, if they were given that spot kick as they were trailing 2-1 to Mamelodi Sundowns and scored, would have gone through on away goal rules.
But Sundowns went through to the final instead and will face Orlando Pirates in the Wafa Wafa final that has been sold out at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on 7 October.
It was the second time Badi failed to make the right call this year. He denied AmaZulu what appeared to be the legitimate goal in the second half when Pule Ekstein thought he had equalised against Royal AM at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in February.
On that occasion, he was overruled by the second assistant on the far side, Simukele Jali, that there was an offside before the goal was scored, while replays show there wasn’t.
In the middle of that whole incident, there was an incident with Samuel Manganyi, who appeared to have handled the ball, but according to the interpretation of the rules, it was not a handball for the penalty because the ball struck Manganyi’s limb first before hitting his arm.
But when it came to the offside call, it was clearly not and the goal should have stood as the last person to kick the ball was from Royal AM.
“We don’t give up on any of our referees no matter how many mistakes they make,” Ebrahim told iDiski Times.
“No matter how bad it is, we don’t give up on any of our match officials.”
Ebrahim, who was a FIFA referee between 2006 and 2011, was asked if the blame should squarely go to the SAFA technical committee that oversees referees’ programs since this was the second mistake in the space of seven months.
“Not necessarily,” said Ebrahim. “Sometimes a referee has a bad day and you must know if the referee is not positioned well, he may not see the incident, he may not give a foul, or he will give a foul or he hasn’t seen the entire incident and doesn’t award a foul.
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“You can’t say anyone is to blame for this. If it was a clear-cut decision, unobstructed view, good proximity and still make a mistake, now we need to ask other questions.
“But I don’t think anybody can be blamed if somebody makes a mistake. I can assure you whatever we do, whatever we try to do, we try to put our mechanism into place. We try to give our match officials the best kind of rehabilitation that they can go through.”
But Ebrahim explained that Badi, unlike last season, this time he has not been suspended but undergoing rehabilitation.
“He is not suspended, he has been put on the rehabilitation program,” cleared Ebrahim.
