South Africa's victory over Spain being made unofficial by FIFA
Okay so the situation here is that everyone is absolutely fuming that despite SA unbelievably beating Spain on Tuesday night, its looking likely that FIFA are going to downgrade the status of the match from International Friendly to Practice Match due to Spain using one more substitute than is legally permissible.
In practical terms this would mean that:
a) none of the players would receive caps for the match
b) it will not be considered on any official records
c) no ranking co-efficient pointy things will be rewarded to South Africa for their victory
It's been pointed out that SA would benefit from a movement of at least 10 places up the rankings, leaving them somewhere between 40-50 in the world, a position that could see the country make great strides to become a top seed on the continent, allowing for easier placements for AFCON and WC qualifications- but because
the referee allowed for the status of the game to be changed (despite protests by the SA coach Igesund) by allowing Reina to come on for the injured Valdes as the 7th substitution, it is now looking like aside for the great victory in terms of morale, development, confidence, etc; the match's entire status will be downgraded because Spain got assisted for 'fair play' (and an overawed referee) which doesn't seem fair.
As far as I'm concerned South Africa should not bear the consequences of the referee and Spain's actions. Either fine Spain for breaking the rule, certainly discipline the referee, but allow for SA to get the points and caps for the game.
Igesund said the unprecedented move should not affect Bafana. "[Spain] wanted to get their player on, the fourth official and the referee were debating about all this," Igesund said.
"I think that their players [Spain] thought that I was saying no [to the decision to allow the substitution]. I didn't say that.
"Obviously it was a language barrier. I said to them quite clearly that the rules were made before the game started.
"They were coming to me and asking me if it was okay to bring the player on. I said that I didn't have a problem with that, I'm not the referee, I don't control the game."
Igesund said the referee made the decision to allow Reina on to the field, the only person able to make such a call.
Here's a link that describes the situation quite clearly:
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-11-20-bafana-could-lose-fifa-ranking-points-after-spain-win
