Senegal to complain to Fifa about poor refereeing

Jul 2, 2012 5:20:00 PM

The country's officials say they can no longer condone poor decisions from referees during international competitions and are planning to contact Fifa to redress the situation

The Senegal football federation (FSF) says it will lodge a complaint with Fifa to highlight how its team has been affected by poor refereeing during international competitions and will call for improvements.

The FSF vice-president Louis Lamotte told reporters in Dakar that if care was not taken the phenomenon would hamstring the progress of African football.

“By the time African football is registering some progress, some referees are taking pleasure in hampering the onward movement by their shameful actions on the pitch,” Lamotte said.

“During the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, Senegal national team suffered from the controversial decisions of Angolan referee Martins de Carvalho Helder. Now, it’s Algerian referee Mohamed Benouza, who presided over the Uganda-Senegal 2014 World Cup qualifier last weekend. His performance was terrible and prevented us from picking an away win,” he added.

Helder was dropped during the 2010 Afcon after being given a poor evaluation by assessors following his performance during the Group C match between Nigeria and Benin, while Benouza is facing suspension since April from the Algeria football federation commission of referees for misconduct during an FA Cup semi-final.

“We want Fifa to take the situation very seriously to preserve the efforts we have made so far to get African football this far,” said Saer Seck, adviser to the FSF president Augustin Senghor.

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