On Saturday, a tough match between the Super Eagles of Nigeria and the Bafana Bafana of South Africa was ruined by poor officiating. After the match, a lot of Nigerian fans expressed their dissatisfaction towards the officials for wrong offside calls that put the Nigerian team at disadvantage in a game they could have won.

During the game, Iheanacho supplied a pass to Ahmed Musa but the linesman raised the flag against him to for an offside which later turned out to be wrong after several replays. Barely five minutes to the end of the game, it also happened again when the lineman killed the Nigerian attack attempt by raising the flag against Musa to be in an offside position which also later turned out to be false. Just take a look at the gap between the last defender and Musa from the picture below.

Officiating Gambian referee, Bakary Papa Gassama has reportedly admitted the fact that there were errors in the game and he apologized to the Nigerian team for the incorrect offside calls. Although the deed has already been done but African football really needs to up their game with sophisticated equipment that will aid decision making.

The referee admitted the wrong offside flags few days after the match and went a step further to apologize to the Nigerian team over the error. He admitted such errors are unavoidable in football, especially in the absence of Video Assistant Referee (VAR). This is one of the reasons why I think like VAR should be introduced to African football. This will reduce avoidable error like this.

The game ended 1-1 draw securing both Nigeria and South Africa a spot at the 2019 African Cup of Nations but the Nigeria Football Federation ( NFF) as well as fans still expressed their dissatisfaction of the poor decision of the officials which prevented Super Eagles from winning the match.

The match has come and gone and we both team qualified but I wish he could simply award Nigeria the goals and declare Nigeria the winner since it was confirmed to be a wrong flag offside calls

What's your take on this kind of error?

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All images are Google sourced

Soccer / afcon 2019 qualifier

See The Wrong Offside Wrong Offside Calls Of A Linesman

See The Wrong Offside Wrong Offside Calls Of A Linesman

See The Wrong Offside Wrong Offside Calls Of A Linesman