'I must be honest with you' - Lesotho FA chief denies direct talks with NFF over Mokoena ineligibility

The Lesotho Football Association has requested Fifa to investigate whether South Africa fielded an ineligible player in a 2-0 win over Lesotho last Friday.  

The Association has asked the governing body to determine whether Bafana Bafana midfielder Teboho Mokoena who received a yellow card in South Africa's 2-1 win against Benin in a Group C fixture of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers in November 18, 2023, and then received another yellow card during Bafana Bafana's 3-1 victory over Zimbabwe on June 11, 2024 should have been allowed to take to the field at all against Lesotho.

The Lesotho Football Association has insisted that South Africa contravened Fifa rule 63 and Mokoena should have been serving a one-match ban after accumulating yellow cards in previous encounters during the qualifying campaign.

The Lesotho Football Association has now written a letter to Fifa to seek clarity on this rule, but it has been argued that they were supposed to raise the flag twenty-four hours post that game on Friday, March 21 to the match commissioner and they didn't do that.

Nigeria, who are believed to have raised the flag 72 hours after the South Africa versus Lesotho match, are obviously interested in this matter as they trail South Africa by six points with four matches remaining in Group C of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers. 

Lesotho Football Association (LeFA) secretary general Mokhosi Mohapi remains confident in the success of their protest, despite it not being submitted within the required timeframe, and revealed that the Association has been in constant communication with Fifa.

When asked if he had been in discussions with the Nigeria Football Federation at any point, Mohapi told Newzroom Afrika: "I must be honest with you. If I were to talk to the Nigeria Football Federation, I would talk to Dr. Sanusi who is the secretary general.

"I haven't spoken to him ever since we were in Egypt. We were in Egypt around March 9th so the match was not even played, we didn't even know.

"In fact if he would have told me then, 'are you aware of this and this', we would have raised on time because we would have known before the match was played.

"I was alerted by a friend of mine who is not even Nigerian for that matter, that are you following what is happening. There's this furore that there's is an illegible player who has played.

"Then I called my team manager if we played a defaulter, he said we are okay, I checked my records, and then I said that could be South Africa."

A successful appeal by Lesotho regarding Mokoena would lift them to nine points and potentially cut South Africa’s lead to 10, leaving them only three points clear of Nigeria with four fixtures to go.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel 

Photo Credit: safa.net

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