Joseph Odartei Lamptey v. FIFA

Ghanaian referee Joseph Odartei Lamptey took charge of South Africa's 2018 World Cup qualifier against Senegal at Peter Mokaba Stadium, Polokwane, on 12 November 2016. In the 42nd minute he awarded South Africa a penalty for handball against Senegal defender Kalidou Koulibaly; television replays showed the ball had struck Koulibaly's knee, not his hand. South Africa converted the penalty and won 2-1, in what was its only victory of that qualifying campaign. CAF initially suspended Lamptey for three months for what it described as poor performance in wrongly awarding "a penalty for a non-existent handball." It was not his first disciplinary sanction: CAF had previously banned him for six months in January 2011 for wrongly allowing a goal scored by hand to stand in a 2010 CAF Champions League semi-final between Espérance and Al Ahly.

FIFA's own investigation went further than CAF's. On 15 March 2017, FIFA's Disciplinary Committee found Lamptey guilty of breaching Article 69(1) of the FIFA Disciplinary Code (unlawfully influencing match results), banning him for life from all football-related activity. FIFA's decision drew on a sporting analysis of the match together with reports of irregular betting activity from international betting-monitoring companies. A second match official investigated over the same game, David Lionheart Nii Lartey Laryea, was cleared of all charges in the same proceedings. Lamptey appealed first to FIFA's own Appeal Committee and, having failed there, to the Court of Arbitration for Sport; CAS confirmed the lifetime ban.

Because CAS had upheld a finding of match manipulation rather than simple refereeing error, FIFA's Bureau for the World Cup Qualifiers took the additional step of ordering the tainted fixture itself to be replayed — annulling South Africa's 2-1 win entirely, rather than leaving the result to stand while punishing only the referee. South Africa initially did not accept the decision but changed course within days, with the South African Football Association stating it had "resolved on moral and ethical grounds that we cannot benefit from corrupt activities." The replay was played back at Peter Mokaba Stadium on 10 November 2017 and finished South Africa 0, Senegal 2, with a Diafra Sakho goal and a Thamsanqa Mkhize own goal.

The case remains a rare example of a completed, refereed match result being erased entirely for manipulation rather than the sanction falling only on the individual responsible — a more disruptive remedy than a ban alone, since it required South Africa's football association, an entirely innocent party to the manipulation, to accept the loss of a result it had done nothing wrong to earn.