The hard-fought clash in front of a packed stadium had all the ingredients of a humdinger. Just as the match was making its way into the MTN8 annals as an all-time classic, this FIFA-accredited referee Tom intervened in a tasteless and thoughtless fashion.
His judgement or lack thereof followed a 92nd-minute incident in which Pirates’ Patrick Maswanganyi went down after a tackle by Stellenbosch defender Ismaël Toure. Tom, some eight metres away, is well positioned to see what happened and he blows for a free-kick – no arguments about that.
Following Toure’s tackle, the ball spins free and rolls about seven metres from where the tackle happened. Tom was talking to a few remonstrating Stellenbosch players and Pirates substitute Relebohile Mofokeng pounces on the ball and takes the free-kick. He takes the free-kick even though it is far from where Tom should have insisted on the position.
Tom does not blow his whistle to signal that the free-kick can be taken but after seeing Mofokeng pass to substitute Tshegofatso Mabasa he sets off on a run to follow play. Moments later Mabasa slots the ball into the Stellenbosch nets to give Pirates a 2-1 lead.
While some disputed Tom’s decision to award Pirates a free-kick, it was not a decision that could directly affect the result of the match. Once Tom had awarded the free kick, he was duty-bound to ensure the ball was in the correct position before the kick was taken.
Then, even worse, he hadn’t blown for the free kick to be taken. He also did not recall play when he noticed the free kick had been taken without his go-ahead. He also needed to reprimand Mofokeng for taking the free-kick from the wrong place and taking it without the referee’s go-ahead.
The laws of the game demand that the free-kick be taken where the foul was committed. It is taken from a more advantageous position, the law of the game says it must be retaken, a rule designed to uphold fairness and precision.
Mike Makaab, the former Pirates coach who steered the club to the 1994 league championship reflected on the incident on social media: “You cannot call it cleverly taken, it was way ahead of where the foul took place”.
This goal sounded the death knell for Stellenbosch, and they dropped their heads in disgust, while Tom allowed play to continue deep into injury time before Pirates ended as flattering 3-1 winners.
One will never know why Tom suddenly failed in his duty as a referee. He was given the plumb fixture probably because it was felt he could do justice to the event. There must also be question marks about the rest of the match officials who failed to draw Tom’s attention to the error of taking a free-kick several metres closer to the Stellenbosch goal.
Football was the big loser at the end of the day and the controversy again drew attention to the need for VAR in South African football. The use of VAR will help to avoid rank poor officiating as was the case in Saturday’s MTN8 final.