{"id":46469,"date":"2026-01-13T21:01:34","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T20:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/?p=46469"},"modified":"2026-01-13T21:01:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T20:01:41","slug":"controversial-referee-appointed-for-egypt-senegal-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/?p=46469","title":{"rendered":"Controversial Referee Appointed for Egypt-Senegal Clash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>DZWatch Exclusive:<\/strong> The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has once again stirred controversy with its refereeing appointments, assigning Gabon&#8217;s Pierre Ghislain Atcho to officiate the high-stakes match between Egypt and Senegal. This decision comes despite widespread criticism leveled against Atcho in recent times.<\/p>\n<p>Atcho is a familiar name to Algerian football fans, albeit for the wrong reasons. He served as the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) during the Algeria-Nigeria match, a game marred by a blatant handball inside the Nigerian penalty area that went unpunished. The VAR team, including Atcho, failed to alert the on-field referee, sparking outrage among Algerian supporters.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the intense backlash following that incident, CAF has entrusted the Gabonese official with a role in the highly anticipated Egypt-Senegal encounter. This match is a significant fixture on the African football calendar, drawing considerable attention from fans and media across the continent.<\/p>\n<p>The appointment has reignited the debate surrounding CAF&#8217;s referee selection criteria and the extent to which the continental body holds officials accountable for impactful errors, especially in crucial matches. Critics argue that assigning such high-profile games to referees with a history of questionable decisions risks exacerbating tensions at a time when African fans are demanding greater transparency and improvements to the continent&#8217;s refereeing system.<\/p>\n<p><em>DZWatch will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates as they become available.<\/em> The controversy surrounding refereeing appointments underscores the urgent need for CAF to address concerns about impartiality and competence within its officiating ranks.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/?cat=40\">More Sports articles on DZWatch<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\">DZWatch &#8211; Your News Portal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DZWatch Exclusive: The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has once again stirred controversy with its refereeing appointments, assigning Gabon&#8217;s Pierre Ghislain Atcho to officiate the high-stakes match between Egypt and Senegal. This decision comes despite widespread critici&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","iawp_total_views":27,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46471,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46469\/revisions\/46471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}