South Africa have been stripped of three points in their World Cup qualifying campaign for fielding an ineligible player, denting their hopes of reaching next year’s finals.
FIFA said on Monday that its disciplinary committee had found South Africa guilty of playing midfielder Tebeho Mokoena in a 2-0 home win over Lesotho in March when he should have sat out the qualifier after two cautions in previous Group C games.
Lesotho have been awarded a 3-0 victory, with South Africa stripped of the points and fined 10,000 Swiss Francs ($12,536.04), while Mokoena was given a warning.
Benin now top the standings on goal difference, level with South Africa on 14 points with two games left.
Nigeria, who were the group favourites, are three points behind along with Rwanda. Only the group winners qualify directly for the World Cup, though the runners-up have a chance to win a berth albeit through an arduous playoff process.
In the penultimate round of qualifiers on October 10, Benin visit Rwanda, Lesotho host Nigeria and South Africa take on Zimbabwe.
The final set of key games on October 14 see South Africa hosting Rwanda while Benin are at neighbouring Nigeria.
Embarrassment for South Africa
Losing the points is a major embarrassment for the South African Football Association, with coach Hugo Broos already admitting: “We did something bad, we did something we shouldn’t do."
But FIFA’s handling of the matter has come in for criticism as it took world soccer’s governing body almost seven months to settle a routine matter.
It had not held a disciplinary hearing before the last round of World Cup qualifiers, to the ire of the other countries.
“It is not normal that we don’t know the situation about the points on the log table before our games (last month),” said Benin coach Gernot Rohr.
FIFA did not respond to multiple enquiries from March onwards about possible sanctions for South Africa, leaving the matter hanging until earlier this month when the body announced it was opening an investigation.
FIFA’s rules state: “If a person receives a caution in two separate matches of the same FIFA competition, they are automatically suspended from the next match in that competition.
“If a team fields a player who is not eligible to participate (due to suspension, registration issues, nationality, etc.), the match is automatically forfeited.
"The default result is a 3-0 loss, unless the actual result was even more disadvantageous to the offending team.”
It is not the first time a country has been docked points for fielding an ineligible player in African World Cup qualification.
In the 2018 qualifiers, FIFA awarded Algeria a 3-0 win as a result of Nigeria fielding the ineligible Shehu Abdullahi, after their match ended in a 1-1 draw.
Ahead of the 2014 finals in Brazil, the Cape Verde Islands lost out on a playoff spot after using Fernando Varela in their shock group win against Tunisia. He was still suspended, so Tunisia went through to the playoffs instead of the islanders.