The head referee who officiated the AFCON 2019 qualifying match between Bafana Bafana and Super Eagles on Saturday in South Africa has apologised for the costly mistakes made by officials during the game.
The Gambian football referee, Bakary Papa Gassama apologised to the Nigerian team after wrongly denying them two goals due to wrong offside calls, according to a report by OwnGoalNigeria.
Ahmed Musa put through Kelechi Iheanacho who tapped home believing he has given Nigeria the lead but Musa who supplied the pass was judged by the assistant referee as been in an offside position, something which turned out to be wrong after video replays.
In the second half with less than five minutes to go, Musa was once again at the receiving end of another poor referee decision as he was once again flagged offside incorrectly after slotting home what could have given Nigeria all three points.
The game ended 1-1 with Nigeria sealing her passage to next year Africa Cup of Nations but officials of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) still expressed their unhappiness to Gassama over the poor decision which cost Nigeria a win.
Gassama admitted the error and even went a step further by sending his apologies to Musa over the incident although he admitted that such errors are sometimes unavoidable particularly due to the non-availability of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR).
Meanwhile, Super Falcons of Nigeria fell 1-0 to South Africa’s Bayana Bayana in their opening group B game of African Women Cup of Nations at the Cape Coast Stadium in Ghana.
The Super Falcons dominated the game and they had the South African women on the ropes several times, but they failed to convert their chances, most especially the one that fell into the foot of Desire Oparanozie in the 32nd minute.
Assisat Oshoala had muscled her way into the box and feed on rushing Oparanozie with the pass, but rather than tap in Oparanozie shot wide. It was a miss that came back to haunt the Super Falcons in the second half.
In the 85th minute substitute Thembi Kgatlana latched on to a lob from the South Africa half and riffled home a shot, which Super Falcons keeper, Tochukwu Oluehi had no answer. The back breaker goal handed the South Africans their first ever win over the Super Falcons who must now win their next two games against Zambia and Equatorial Guinea to advance.
“South Africa have prepared well. They have played a lot of friendlies. “Everybody wants to beat the champions, everybody wants to beat Nigeria. It is going to be difficult but I have the confidence of getting a good result. I know my team, they are in a really good shape,” said Super Falcons coach Thomas Dennerby.
