CAPE TOWN — South Africa’s World Cup dream has been thrown into turmoil after FIFA docked Bafana Bafana three points for fielding an ineligible player, handing Group C rivals Benin pole position with just two qualifiers left.
Midfielder Teboho Mokoena, who should have served a suspension after two earlier bookings, played in South Africa’s 2–0 win over Lesotho in March. FIFA has now overturned that result, awarding Lesotho a 3–0 victory, slapping South Africa with a fine of 10,000 Swiss francs ($12,500), and warning Mokoena.
The ruling leaves Benin top of Group C on goal difference with 14 points, level with South Africa. Nigeria and Rwanda trail by just three points, keeping the group wide open. Only the winners qualify automatically for the 2026 World Cup, while runners-up face a grueling playoff.
The sanction has embarrassed the South African Football Association and coach Hugo Broos, who admitted: “We did something bad, we did something we shouldn’t do.”
But FIFA itself is under fire for dragging its feet. It took the governing body nearly seven months to confirm the punishment, a delay that left other nations furious. Benin coach Gernot Rohr fumed: “It is not normal that we don’t know the situation about the points before our games last month.”
The controversy echoes past African qualifiers where sides have been punished for fielding suspended players — Cape Verde lost a playoff place to Tunisia in 2013, and Nigeria forfeited points to Algeria in 2017.
South Africa now face a must-win clash against Zimbabwe on October 10, before hosting Rwanda in a decisive finale four days later. Meanwhile, Benin head to Rwanda and then Nigeria in back-to-back crunch ties.
With margins razor-thin, one administrative blunder has turned Group C into a pressure cooker — and Bafana Bafana’s route to the World Cup from a straight sprint into a desperate uphill battle.
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