African football sits at yet another crossroad in its search for credibility after farcical and violent scenes in Saturday’s quarter-finals at its showpiece event. A dubious refereeing decision, followed by a violent reaction from aggrieved Tunisian players, put a damper on an African Nations Cup tournament that has been hastily put together in a matter of over just two months.
Equatorial Guinea stepped in just 64 days before kick off as emergency hosts to rescue the tournament and their national team, ranked 118th in the world, have since emerged as unlikely semi-finalists after two successive upset wins.
But soft penalties in both their victory over neighbours Gabon in the group phase and Saturday’s quarter-final triumph over Tunisia take the gloss off two upset results.
On Saturday, Tunisia silenced the 35 000 fanatic home fans in the 70th minute when Ahmed Akaichi flicked in at the near post after a perfect first-time cross by Hamza Mathlouthi for a 1-0 lead.
Mathlouthi was the Tunisian to give away the penalty at the death, though, when referee Seechurn Rajindraparsad decided he tripped Bolado. It sent the match into extra time, even though it appeared to be the wrong decision.
The angered Tunisians surrounded the referee, and on the sidelines both teams’ coaches approached each other and shouted angrily. Players also had to be pushed apart by officials as they jostled.
Bottles were thrown in the direction of both teams’ dugouts, as the crowd roared and stamped its feet on the metal floors of Bata Stadium, and it took minutes for calm to be restored.
Riot police with helmets and shields moved over to the trouble.
Although Javier Balboa then scored a stunning free-kick winner to put the small African country through to the last four, joyous home celebrations were overshadowed by fighting between the two teams and then an attempt to attack the referee.
Several Tunisian players chased him down the tunnel, attempting to kick and punch him as Rajindraparsad was escorted off the field by a phalanx of riot-clad policemen.
The referee’s report will now prove crucial if there is to be any serious sanction, but there was enough television evidence of the violent attacks on Saturday for the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to come down hard on players.
Attacks on referees are all too commonplace in African football, but few culprits are ever handed the kind of stiff bans that would serve as a deterrent to others.
Much of it is because of CAF’s failure to properly prosecute such attacks, insisting on relying on the referee’s report when often times the officials are unaware of who attacked them.
The niggling nature of Saturday’s game, which included a spitting incident, takes away the gloss off near-heroic efforts by CAF and the hosts to offer an international standard of playing facilities in a country of sparse resources.
Oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, where ostentatious displays of wealth sit uncomfortably alongside poverty, stepped in rescue the Nations Cup after Morocco were stripped of the right to host it because they sought a postponement for fears over the Ebola virus.
Scepticism over Equatorial Guinea was heightened by coaches’ complaints over hotels and transport in the opening days of the tournament, but then tempered by the realisation of a genuine desire on the part of the hosts to offer the best possibility facilities.
All those efforts, however, are now overshadowed by Saturday’s controversy.
Reuters