As per the match officials' assessor report, the four, who handled last week's match between Security Systems and Gaborone United (GU) had done a good job. However, they failed to pick that Systems made a fourth substitution outside the stipulated manner.
The suspended officials are Moemedi Tlhabolang, Thuso Marman, Thatayaone Gasebonno and Kagiso Molefhi. The BFA confirmed the suspension of the four officials through a press statement yesterday.
A team is allowed to make up to five substitutions but in stipulated three windows. The match referee, Tlhabolang and the fourth official, Marman have been slapped with a six-week suspension, while the two assistant referees won't be on the touchline for the next four weeks.
The BFA referees’ manager, Phodido Jonty Rasetsoga welcomed the suspensions as he said this was meant to remind the match officials of the laws of the game. He said the BFA would have been reprimanded by CAF and FIFA had they not acted. “The assessor’s report reflects excellent performance from all the match officials.
The accepted performance is as per the marks allocated to each match official out of 10. Even the comments in the report are positive, which means they are not being punished for their performance but that single interpretation of the laws of the game,” Rasetsoga said. “None of them was under any pressure to fail to pick it. So this is just to remind them because if this landed in the hands of FIFA, CAF action was likely to be taken against BFA,” Rasetsoga said. BFA also confirmed the suspension of three other match officials for late coming, bringing the number of officials on the sidelines to seven. The three suspended for late coming are Patrick Paramenasi, Mpho Maimela and Sibusiso Monnane. Rasetsoga has, however, allayed fears that there would be a shortage of match officials following the suspensions.
The BFA has assigned 33 match officials for the Botswana Premier League games for this season. Of the 33, 23 are elite referees while 10 are youth referees promoted from regional league football. “They are more than enough to handle our Premier League matches looking at the number of matches per week. We also considered if the referees would be on duty for consecutive match days or weekends. But in terms of the number and quality, we have more than enough match officials to handle the Premier League up to the end,” Rasetsoga said. Meanwhile, long-serving referee Lekgotla Johannes has retired from duty bringing to a close a career spanning more than a decade.
