Ghanaian referee Joseph Lamptey’s appeal against his lifetime ban has been rejected by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the judicial body has announced.
Following an official complaint from Senegal, the 44-year-old was found guilty in March last year for awarding a controversial penalty to South Africa in their 2-1 win over Senegal during a 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifier at the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane.
The game was replayed, with Senegal claiming a win to qualify to the final tournament holding in Russia.
However, Lamptey appealed against the ruling and insisted that the punishment was ‘harsh and inhumane’ but CAS has further revealed that the Ghanaian intentionally took two dubious decisions to help a betting company achieve a specific number of goals in that particular game.
“FIFA has taken note of the motivated arbitral award of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) confirming the lifetime ban imposed by FIFA’s Disciplinary and Appeal Committees on Ghanaian match official Joseph Odartei Lamptey,” a statement from Fifa read.
“FIFA’s judicial bodies had banned Mr Lamptey for life for breaching art. 69 par 1 (unlawfully influencing match results) of the FIFA Disciplinary Code during the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia qualifying match between South Africa and Senegal on 12 November 2016.
“In its ruling, CAS concluded that Mr Lamptey had intentionally taken two wrong decisions with the sole purpose of enabling a specific number of goals to be scored that would make pertinent bets successful.
“CAS concluded that there was an obvious link between these intentionally wrong decisions and a deviation from an expected betting pattern and consequently found Mr Lamptey guilty of having unlawfully influenced the result of the match.”
The statement added: “This CAS decision underlines FIFA’s commitment to protecting the integrity of football and its zero-tolerance policy on match manipulation, while also highlighting the effectiveness of its current agreement with Sportradar that uses their Fraud Detection System, which played an important role in this case.”
Lamptey, a high-ranking officer in Ghana’s immigration service, was handed a six-month ban by CAF in 2011 when he awarded a dubious goal to Esperance de Tunis against Al Ahly in a CAF Champions League game.