South Africa goalkeeper, Ronwen Williams believes ‘ball boys’ were trained to frustrate them in their defeat to Ghana.
Bafana Bafana’s hope of playing in the Mundial next season was crashed after they suffered a 1-0 defeat to the Black Stars.
Williams could not save his side from defeat after failing to deal with Ghana captain, Andre Ayew’s 33rd-minute penalty at the Cape Coast Stadium.
However, the South Africa FA have officially lodged a complaint to FIFA about the game and are waiting for a response from the world governing body.
Head coach Hugo Broos blamed Senegalese referee, Maguette Ndiaye for their defeat but Ronwen Williams has placed his blame at the doorstep of the ‘ball boys’.
“Throughout the qualifiers, the ball boys did not have the ball in their hand; the balls were in the corners but in this specific game, the ball boys hand the balls in their hand,” he said during a presser on Wednesday.
“It was unheard of in this qualifiers. Whenever the ball goes out, they will always restart the play quickly the will throw the ball back quickly.
“But the moment they scored, the ball boys disappeared. As you can imagine, it took long for the ball to get back in play,” he added.
Ghana and South Africa finished level on 13 points after six matches but the Black Stars scored more goals [7] as against South Africa’s six to progress to the final playoffs.
Ghana are likely to face any of Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria or Cameroon in the final playoffs set for March 2022 with the draw set for December 18.
Source: Modern Ghana