Bizarre at the Africa Cup of Nations! The referee stopped the match before the 90 minutes were up, then wanted to restart it

The Africa Cup of Nations match between Tunisia and Mali ended in total chaos (0:1). Experienced referee Janny Sikazwe incomprehensibly ended it 11 seconds before the expiration of the 90 minutes of normal time. He ran out of errors half an hour into the match and wanted to finish it properly, but Tunisia refused.

You don’t see that very often. Even more so when we are talking about a top continental tournament and a match managed by a very experienced referee. But even a master carpenter can make mistakes.

On Wednesday, Janny Sikazwe inadvertently became such a “master”, as he managed to blow his whistle three times in Tunisia’s match against Mali at 89:49. According to football standards, therefore, the game should have been played for at least another 11 seconds.

But even that would probably not have prevented complaints from the Tunisian national team. Their opponents’ striker El Bilal Toure was shown a red card in the 87th minute, which was examined by VAR for a few more minutes. Sikazwe nevertheless decided to send off the Mali player. However, immediately afterwards, instead of announcing the number of minutes to be set, he blew the whistle to end the match.

Tunisia thus lost their opening match of the tournament 0-1, due to two controversial penalties for handball. Ibrahima Kone converted the one for the Mali national team in the 48th minute, while Tunisia did not give their penalty kick through Wahbi Khazri.

However, the bizarre scenes continued even after the original end of the match. Indeed, a few dozen minutes later there was talk of the match being played out, and Mali’s players then actually ran onto the pitch, ready to fight with ten men to preserve their victory. Tunisia, however, flatly refused to rejoin in protest, opting instead to lodge a complaint.

It is very interesting that such a blunder happened to Janny Sikazwe, who is one of the best and most respected African referees ever. In 2017, he officiated the Africa Cup of Nations final between Cameroon and Egypt, a year earlier he officiated the Club World Cup final and four years ago he even officiated two World Cup matches in Russia.

Source: The Athletic, Eurosport