God ordered me to end the match and I’m glad I did– Tunisia-Mali referee finally speaks

The referee who made headlines after he prematurely ended a game between Mali and Tunisia at the ongoing AFCON 2021 has finally spoken about the infamous incident. 

According to him, he was suffering heatstroke during the game and if he had not ended the game, he would have died- yeah just like that.

Janny Sikazwe spoke to journalists in Zambia after returning to his home country, said he was relieved to have gone back home alive.

“I have seen people going for duties outside the country and come back in a casket. I was very close to coming back like that. I was lucky I didn’t go into a coma. It would have been a very different story,” he said.

He attributed his decision to end the game to God, noting that doctors had warned beforehand about the consequences of the weather. “The doctors told me my body was not cooling down. It would have been just a little time before [I would have gone] into a coma, and that would have been the end,” he said.

“I think God told me to end the match. He saved me.” Sikazwe explained they began the game despite the extreme conditions and how, despite struggling with the equipment, he soldiered on. “The weather was so hot, and the humidity was about 85%. After the warm-up, I felt the [conditions] were something else.

We were trying to drink water but you could not feel the water quenching you, nothing,” he said. “But we [match officials] believe we are soldiers and we go and fight. Everything I was putting on was hot. Even the communication equipment, I wanted to throw it away. It was so hot.”

Sikazwe was criticized for not informing his assistants about his condition and instead ending the match early twice.

“I started getting confused. I could not hear anybody. I reached the point where I could start hearing some noise and I thought someone was communicating with me and people were telling me ‘no you ended the match’. It was a very strange situation.

“I was going through my head to find who told me to end the match. Maybe I was talking to myself, I don’t know.

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