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African federation cries 'prejudice'
FIFA official says claim is 'just ridiculous'
Posted: Thursday June 25, 1998 01:06 PM
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Cameroon coach Claude Le Roy watched his team get eliminated from the World Cup after a disallowed goal led to a draw against Chile (AP) |
PARIS (AP) -- The African Football Confederation charged Thursday that
teams from the continent had been victimized by "one-sided" refereeing at
the World Cup and urged FIFA to "repair prejudice" that resulted in the
elimination of African teams.
"In effect, contrary to all the other teams that have qualified, a special
treatment seems to have been reserved for the representatives of Africa,"
Mustapha Fahmy, general secretary of the confederation, said in a statement
issued in France.
Fahmy's statement asserted that refereeing errors had resulted in the
elimination of Cameroon in
the first round and also prevented Morocco from
advancing to the second round.
Tunisia and
South
Africa also failed to advance. Nigeria was the
Only one of five African teams to reach the round of 16.
"Faced with this situation, all of African soccer suffers from a profound
unease: A feeling that her representatives are undesirables on the grandest
stage of soccer on the planet," Fahmy's statement said.
His confederation, which is based in Cairo, urged the world soccer
federation to take "all necessary measures" to "rule out prejudice caused
by one-sided refereeing of which our representatives have been the victim
..."
The same rules would be applied to all the teams still in the competition
"no matter what their origins," the statement said. The 32-nation
tournament began June 10 and runs through July 12.
David Will, chief of the FIFA referee office, said earlier Thursday that
charges of political favoritism in refereeing were "just ridiculous."
"The referees are not the slightest bit interested in the political
situation," he said. "They are simply refereeing the game. They don't even
known who the two teams are. They go from match to match and round to
round," Will said at a press conference in which he defending the quality
of refereeing at the World Cup.
On Tuesday, Hungarian referee Laszlo Vagner nullified a goal that would
have put Cameroon ahead of Chile 2-1,
calling Patrick Mboma for pushing off a defender. Replays showed contact,
but no clear foul. The 1-1 tie, coupled with Italy's 2-1
victory over Austria, meant
Chile advanced and Cameroon was out.
That sparked attacks in the Cameroon capital of Yaounde by black fans on
white-owned businesses and harsh words from the government.
"What we saw is not a World Cup competition. It has been a festival of
scandal," Youth and Sports Minister Joseph Owona told the African Nation
newspaper.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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