CAF EMERGENCY COMMITTEE MAY SUSPEND REFEREE GASSAMA; FINE TUNISIA FA

June 4, 2019 8:15am

BY KUNLE SOLAJA

On the sidelines of the 69th FIFA Congress in Paris, the seven-man Emergency Committee of CAF is expected to meet this Tuesday to deliberate on the controversy-riddled CAF Champions’ League 2nd leg final played at the weekend in Tunis, Tunisia. But in reality, only five of the members will meet.

Hassan Musa Bility of Liberia has resigned his membership of the committee in February. Fouzi Lekjaa, the Royal Morocco FA boss who is also CAF 3rd Vice President will technically be excluded as the case tabled for hearing affects his country and national association.

The exclusion of the two will still afford the Executive Committee a split decision, thus avoiding deadlock when it comes to voting. The committee is headed by CAF President, Ahmad and it also has the two vice presidents, Amaju Pinnick of Nigeria and Constant Omari Selemani of DR Congo.

The two other members are Suleiman Hassan Waberi of  Djibouti and Hany Abou Ridar of Egypt.

Sports Village Square gathered that among the likely decisions, the Gambian referee, Bakary Gassama who officiated the match is likely going to be suspended for poor officiating.

The Egyptian referee, Gehad Grisha who officiated the first leg that ended 1-1 had been slammed with a six-month suspension. Incidentally, the build-up to the punishment had to do with disallowed goal and VAR.

The 43-year-old referee also went to the VAR twice, the first time to rule out a goal for the hosts due to a handball in the build-up to the goal, before not awarding Wydad a penalty in the 57th minute after consulting the VAR.

According to Morocco World News, CAF President, Ahmad was in sympathy with Morocco as he emphasised that ‘their goal was legitimate without VAR.’ The medium also Ahmad was of the opinion that ‘what has been happening might be a “conspiracy” against him.’

He told Morocco’s Al Mountakhab newspaper that he was personally “surprised and angry against all the issues that happened so fast. It appears that there has been something going down against me.”