{{Burkina Faso’s Jonathan Pitroipa has been cleared to play in the Africa Cup of Nations final against Nigeria on Sunday after his ban was rescinded.}}<\/p>\n
Referee Slim Jdidi admitted that he mistakenly issued the winger with a second yellow card for simulation in the semi-final against Ghana.<\/p>\n
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) confirmed on Friday that the resulting ban would be overturned.<\/p>\n
Jdidi has already been suspended for his performance in the semi-final. <\/p>\n
A senior CAF official told Reuters: “The referee wrote the letter to the review committee saying he had made a mistake.<\/p>\n
“The review committee examined footage of the incident and agreed Pitroipa had been fouled.<\/p>\n
“It asked the disciplinary committee to verify its decision, which [it] is entitled to do under the terms of Caf’s rules and regulations.”<\/p>\n
Burkina Faso will play in their first Cup of Nations final, while Nigeria are seeking their third continental title.<\/p>\n
Pitroipa, who plays for French side Rennes, will be a key player in Paul Put’s side, who are missing top scorer Alain Traore.<\/p>\n
Striker Traore scored three goals in the group stage but suffered a thigh injury in the final group game against Zambia.<\/p>\n
Pitroipa was shown a second yellow card in the final minutes of extra-time against Ghana by Tunisian official Jdidi, earning a caution for simulation even though John Boye appeared to trip the Burkinabe inside his own area.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the match, which Burkina Faso won after a dramatic penalty shoot-out, officials from the West African nation made an official protest about the referee’s performance to African football’s ruling body.<\/p>\n
Caf President Issa Hayatou admitted earlier on Friday that refereeing mistakes had been made at the tournament.<\/p>\n
“Overall we are satisfied but we experienced some mistakes with the referees especially at the semi-final between Ghana and Burkina Faso, and there were other errors too at the Tunisia v Togo [group] match,” he said.<\/p>\n
Caf Secretary-General Hicham El Amrani, meanwhile, told a news conference in Johannesburg on Thursday that his body was unhappy with the standard of officiating in the Nelspruit semi-final.<\/p>\n
Jdidi infuriated Burkina Faso when not only sending off Pitroipa after he had seemingly won a penalty but also awarding Ghana a debatable spot-kick themselves, before disallowing a legitimate-looking Stallions goal.<\/p>\n
“We would have expected a better standard,” El Amrani said.<\/p>\n
Already missing the injured Traore for the first Nations Cup final in the Stallions’ history, the absence of key man Pitroipa, who scored the match-winner in Sunday’s quarter-final win over Togo, would have been another major blow for the Burkinabe.<\/p>\n
Prior to these finals, the Stallions had failed to win a match at the Nations Cup on foreign soil, having reached the semi-finals when hosting in 1998, but they now stand on the verge of their greatest triumph.<\/p>\n
BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Burkina Faso’s Jonathan Pitroipa has been cleared to play in the Africa Cup of Nations final against Nigeria on Sunday after his ban was rescinded.}} Referee Slim Jdidi admitted that he mistakenly issued the winger with a second yellow card for simulation in the semi-final against Ghana. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) confirmed on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-5748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5748"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=5748"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=5748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}