Safa in the Free State has explained its stance to not avail match officials and to sanction the Macufe Cup.
This year’s event featured Kaizer Chiefs and Royal AM and took place on Sunday (25/09).
The tournament is annually organised by the C Squared Group.
It emerged the organiser and the football federation would not agree terms of payment for the sanctioning of the one-day tournament and making available qualified match officials.
According to the federation, three of the four officials were no longer part of its structures – only Kgotso Rasoue. It is understood that Veli Nday, Molefi Motoai and Tebogo Segopa operate privately.
According to Safa, all four men became involved on their terms after agreeing with C Squared. This happened after the group had changed its decision and opted for private officials.
Enoch Molefe, provincial Safa head of the referees’ technical committee, said a quotation was provided after the organiser had made a request.
“The structure made the national office aware, and the office gave guidelines. Toko Malebo appointed referees as per the guidelines of the national office, and the province advised appointed referees to be ready while awaiting payment,” said Molefe.
Lucas Matobako, provincial chairperson of the referees, said communication had also been sent to Safa nationally – with Abdul Basit Ebrahim, interim head of department of referees, providing guidelines on the appointment of five match officials, given the two clubs involved were also in the elite professional league.
He said in terms of the guidelines, all referees and assistant referees should be those serving on the national panel.
The provincial structure was further advised to either assign a fourth official from the national panel or provincial panel.
“The question of neutrality is always important, but as the teams participating are from other provinces, it would be in order to appoint match officials from the Free State province,” said Ebrahim in an email sent to Safa’s provincial officials.
Matobako said the provincial technical structure had earmarked match officials serving on the panel of the Premier Soccer League (PSL), and CAF and Fifa accredited.
“This has been the standing order to show credibility of the tournament, which the national broadcaster had televised again,” he said.
