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Leslie Sedibe, a former chief executive of the South African
Football Association (SAFA), was banned for five years and fined
20,000 Swiss francs ($20,250) by FIFA's Ethics Committee. Steve
Goddard and Adeel Carelse, both former heads of the SAFA's
refereeing department, were each banned for two years, soccer's
governing body said in a statement.
The cases were linked to that of former SAFA executive member
and head of referees Lindile Kika, who was banned for six years
by FIFA last October.
FIFA said that Sedibe, Goddard and Carelse had all infringed
ethics rules concerning general rules of conduct, loyalty and
disclosure, cooperation and reporting.
The investigations were conducted by FIFA's Ethics Committee
along with the security division, which is responsible for
fighting match-fixing.
A previous FIFA investigation had looked into warm-up matches
that South Africa played against Thailand, Bulgaria, Colombia
and Guatemala in May 2010 ahead of the World Cup, which South
Africa was hosting.
In 2012, FIFA handed SAFA a 500-page report that documented the
activities of convicted Singapore-based match-fixer Wilson
Perumal and his Football 4U organization.
Chris Eaten, FIFA's head of security at the time, said that
Perumal's company had provided the match officials for the four
games under investigation.
South Africa usually invites match officials from neighboring
countries to handle home friendlies, but agreed to Perumal's
offer to fly in officials from Kenya, Niger and Togo for the
four matches.
South Africa were handed two disputed penalties in their 2-1
victory over Colombia in Johannesburg on May 27, 2010. One of
the kicks was ordered to be retaken twice after the initial
efforts were both saved. Colombia's goal also came from a
penalty.
Four days later, South Africa were awarded another two spot
kicks in their 5-0 win over Guatemala in Polokwane.
Match fixing is often organized by betting syndicates who make
money by correctly gambling on the result of the match they have
manipulated. ($1 = 0.9877 Swiss francs)
(Additional reporting by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town and James
Macharia in Johannesburg; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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