{"id":35396,"date":"2025-09-29T23:48:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T23:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/world-cup-2026-qualifying-south-africa-handed-forfeit-for-ineligible-player\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T23:48:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T23:48:15","slug":"world-cup-2026-qualifying-south-africa-handed-forfeit-for-ineligible-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/world-cup-2026-qualifying-south-africa-handed-forfeit-for-ineligible-player\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026 qualifying: South Africa handed forfeit for ineligible player"},"content":{"rendered":"


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South Africa’s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 Fifa World Cup have suffered a major blow after they were sanctioned for fielding an ineligible player.<\/b><\/p>\n

Teboho Mokoena played in the 2-0 win over Lesotho in March despite the 28-year-old midfielder being due to serve a suspension<\/a> after accumulating two yellow cards.<\/p>\n

A Fifa disciplinary committee has ruled that South Africa breached competition rules, and has imposed a 3-0 forfeit.<\/p>\n

The country’s football association (Safa) has been fined 10,000 Swiss Francs ($12,500, \u00a39,340), while Mokoena has been issued with a warning.<\/p>\n

The decision has blown Group C of African World Cup qualifying wide open, with South Africa dropping from top of the table to second place, behind Benin on goal difference.<\/p>\n

Only the group winners are assured of reaching next year’s tournament in north and central America.<\/p>\n

It also gives renewed hope to Nigeria and Rwanda of reaching the finals, with both of those sides now three points below Benin and South Africa.<\/p>\n

Benin travel to Rwanda and Nigeria in the final two round of qualifiers between 10 and 14 October, while South Africa face an away game against Zimbabwe before hosting Rwanda.<\/p>\n

Safa has 10 days to appeal Fifa’s decision.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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South Africa’s hopes of qualifying for the 2026 Fifa World Cup have suffered a major blow after they were sanctioned for fielding an ineligible player. Teboho Mokoena played in the 2-0 win over Lesotho in March despite the 28-year-old midfielder being due to serve a suspension after accumulating two yellow cards. A Fifa disciplinary committee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35398,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35396\/revisions\/35398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}