Phatšoane teams up with Gomes on CAF duty

TEBOHO JAFETA

MASERU – Prominent football referee, Souru Phatšoane, has been assigned to officiate the upcoming Confederation of African Football (CAF) Champions League (CCL) semi-final first leg encounter between ES Tunis and Al Ahly.

The continental body has partnered him with South Africa’s Victor Gomes for the June 19 match in Tunisia.

LeFA Media Officer, Mikia Kalati, said Phatšoane who will be the second assistant referee in the match, will be working along with a South African duo of Gomes as the central referee and Zakhele Siwela as the first assistant referee, along with Helder Carvalho of Angola as the fourth official.

“Phatšoane will a week later head to Morocco for the Confederations Cup assignment between Morocco’s Raja Casablanca who will take on Pyramids of Egypt. He will in this match work as the Second Assistant Video Assistant Referee (VAR),” Kalati said.

He also said LeFA is currently waiting for the referee’s travel tickets from CAF so that they finalise logistics regarding his departure to Tunisia ahead of the match.

Phatšoane last year officiated the FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup in Brazil alongside Gomes and he also managed to officiate many other international sporting events under the auspices of COSAFA, CAF and FIFA.

Phatšoane officiated the CAF Champions League first leg match between Raja Casablanca of Morocco and TP Mazembe of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Raja Casablanca won by 2 – 0 in February.

He recently officiated the CAF Champions League match as the first assistant referee on May, 22 where Wydad Casablanca of Morocco won 1-0 against Algeria’s MC Alger while he earlier officiated as the first assistant in another CCL match where Mamelodi Sundowns hosted Belouizdad on April 9.

Sundowns went down 2-0 to the visitors in the game played South Africa.

Phatšoane also officiated the Vita Club CCL match as the first assistant where Vita went down 0-3 to Al Ahly on March 16, and the Kaizer Chiefs versus Horoya CCL goalless draw on February 23 in which he was the first assistant.

On the February, 14, 2020 Phatšoane officiated a prestigious CAF Super Cup final match between Esperance de Tunis and Zamalek of Egypt in Doha Qatar where Zamalek won the match by 2 goals to one.

Phatšoane’s counterpart, Gomes, has gone on to officiate numerous Total CAF Champions League and Total CAF Confederation Cup matches, the Total Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea 2015 and Egypt 2019, the Total Under-17 Africa Cup of Nations Gabon 2017 and the 2019 FIFA Under-17 World Cup in Brazil.

Both Phatšoane and Gomes have been appointed to officiate at the upcoming Tokyo Olympics set for July 23 until August 8 in Japan.