South African Team Who Scored 41 Own Goals Get Life Ban
Nsami Mighty Birds lost a game 59-1 and 41 of those were scored by their own players in a match fixing scandal, and they've now been banned.
If one own goal in a game is misfortune and two is carelessness then I'm not exactly sure how one explains 41 own goals in a game, well scandal pretty much sums it up.
South African team Nsami Mighty Birds lost a game 59-1 to Matiyasi FC, in the South African four tier last month, in which most of the goals were scored by the losing team.
They also lost four players to red cards. finishing the game with just seven men, none of which sounds like the most subtle approach to match fixing.
Matiyasi were battling with Shivulani Dangerous Tigers for the title when the Tigers beat Kotoko Happy Boys by an impressive 33-1 scoreline, before third place Nsami shipped 59, presumably both losing sides scored to make it believable.
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Earlier in the season the games had finished 2-2 and 2-1, you'd be really annoyed if you only saw four or three goals in a match and missed the 60 and 34 goal thrillers in May.
Now all four teams have been handed bans, meaning that fourth placed side Gawula Classic won the title.
"Our investigation found that Matiyasi and Nsami wanted to stop Shivulani from topping the log so they agreed on fixing the match to prevent this from happening," president of the Mopani region, Vincent Ramphago, told BBC Sport.
"What is sad is there are young players involved because the competition rules stipulate that each team has to field at least five players under 21.
"Our main aim in organising leagues is to make sure we groom the young footballers into potential future Bafana Bafana players.
"When we investigated we discovered that some of the Matiyasi goals were not even [properly registered] because the referee was unable to interpret his report.
"We found the referee was just writing - 'player number 2 scored 10 goals, player number 5 scored 20 goals' and so on - but there were 41 own goals so how were they recording these?"
The clubs have been given lifetime bans whilst officials from the clubs have been given bans between five and eight years and match officials can't work in football for 10 seasons.
Nsami weren't the only ones to finish their game with four less players, as Ramphago revealed, with Kotoko players being too tired to carry on.
"Our investigation found that Matiyasi and Nsami wanted to stop Shivulani from topping the log so they agreed on fixing the match to prevent this from happening," the president added.
"After hearing that Matiyasi were leading 22-0 at half-time, Shivulani colluded to remove Kotoko Happy Boys players from the field. The players who came off said they were tired leaving their team with only seven players.
"In the Matiyasi game meanwhile, the referee gave players red cards so that Nsami ended up with seven players."
Topics: South Africa
Ryan Sidle