The Africa Cup match between Tunisia and Mali had an unusual situation on Wednesday as Zambian referee Janny Sikazwe whistled for the final at 85 minutes and after the error he finished it again one minute before the regulation time was up. The role did not end there, since the meeting of the first date of group F was tried to resume 40 minutes later to play the remaining time, but Tunisia refused to leave the dressing room, so Mali finally won 1-0.
The first match of Wednesday’s day of the continental championship will go down in history due to the terrible performance of Zambian referee Sikazwe, who has been a FIFA international since 2010.
The judge whistled the end of the match in the 85th minute when Mali led 1-0 from 3m. of the second half for the goal of Ibrahima Kone, through a penalty kick. Faced with the claim of the Tunisian bank and the warning of his assistants, Sikazwe realized the mistake and resumed the match. However, when the official broadcast clock struck 89 minutes, the referee once again called the match over.
In addition to the seconds remaining to reach the regulatory 90 minutes, the referee determined the end of the match without addition, when there had been five change windows, medical attention and a VAR check to collect the penalty that defined the result.
About forty minutes after the end, the refereeing team and the Malian players returned to leave the field of play at the Limbé stadium, in Cameroon, to play the remaining minutes, but the Tunisian team decided not to return, in protest for what happened.
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