South African soccer teams banned for fixing matches

Four South African soccer clubs were banned from their league for life amid some eye-popping match fixing allegations.

Fourth-tier clubs Matiyasi FC, Shivulani Dangerous Tigers, Kotoko Happy Boys and Nsami Mighty Birds were all banned after a stunning display that included referees and club officials.

The Matiyasi and Mighty Birds conspired to keep the Tigers — holding a plus-16 goal differential over second place Matiyasi — from being promoted out of the SAFA Mopani Zebras Steam A. In doing so, Matiyasi claimed a ridiculous 22-0 halftime lead over Nsami.

Seeing this, players from Shivulani and Kootko went out and one-upped their counterparts. Several Happy Boys players left the field at the half claiming fatigue, leaving just seven Kotoko players to finish the game.

The Tigers won in a 33-1 rout. Matiyasi, meanwhile, was a 59-1 victor in a game that saw Nsami players score 41 own-goals.

The attention-grabbing finals did just that, causing the league to investigate.

“When the teams had previously met in March, the scorelines were considerably more sober with Matiyasi beating Mighty Birds 2-1 while Dangerous Tigers drew 2-2 with Happy Boys,” Vincent Ramphago, president of the Mopani region, told BBC Sport Africa.

Game logs from several May 21 games are not available on the league’s website.

Ramphago, the chairman of the region’s competitions committee, found that officials issued red cards to Nsami, leaving the club with seven players against Matiyasi and did not properly record several goals.

“We found the referee was just writing ‘player number 2 scored 10 goals, player number 5 scored 20 goals’ and so on,” Ramphago said, “but there were 41 own goals, so how were they recording these?”

Mighty Birds head coach Neil Thwala blamed the egregious match-fixing on his players, alleging they were told referees in a previous game were trying to help Matiyasi.

“In the previous match we played, we were told the referee is part of Shivulane Dangerous Tigers,” he said in a radio interview. “We scored four goals but all of them were disallowed by the referee but then they hit the side netting and the referee said it’s a goal. When we reported the matter, but we were told that the referee’s decision is final.

“The players’ minds were not on the game because even if they won, they knew it wasn’t going to help them in any way. I tried as a coach to push them but it was difficult — there was nothing I could do.”

There is even less to do now — in addition to the teams being banned from competing, officials from the clubs have been suspended for up to eight seasons with the offending referees gone for 10.

“These people don’t have respect for football, and we cannot allow it to happen again,” Ramphago said.