FIFA to rule that South Africa’s 1-0 win over Spain never actually happened by TomConn | Posted on Wednesday, November 20th, 2013 A representative of FIFA has reportedly stated that South Africa’s 1-0 friendly win over Spain will be downgraded and not reflected in the FIFA World Rankings due to an illegal seventh substitution by Spanish manager, Vicente Del Bosque following the injury to Victor Valdes. According to South Africa radio station, Eyewitness News, a FIFA spokesman informed them that the match will not count towards the world ranking points, which Spain currently leads with 1,513 points. 35 minutes into the second half of Tuesday’s match, Victor Valdes was forced to leave the pitch after suffering a calf muscle tear, but due to the fact that Spain had already used their maximum six substitutions, defender Arbeloa was officially forced to step into the goal. Del Bosque persuaded the official to allow 3rd choice keeper, Pepe Reina to be subbed in, which the referee allowed, to the outrage of South Africa manager, Gordon Igesund who was adamant that they abide by the FIFA rules. Meanwhile, Del Bosque justified the substitution as being in light of “fair play” while the FIFA rules state that in the occurence of such a violation, the match must be downgraded from Category A status. The FIFA’ spokesman went on to add that they are in the process of drawing up a report and investigating into the matter before official ruling it as disqualified. If the decision holds, the match would be nothing more than a testimonial to Spain’s 2010 World Cup victory and Alvaro Arbeloa’s Spanish national team goalkeeping appearance would be striken from the books, as well as his 0.00 goals conceded ratio.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 08:29:46 +0000
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