{"id":58697,"date":"2022-02-02T18:33:06","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T17:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/?p=58697"},"modified":"2022-02-02T18:07:17","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T17:07:17","slug":"afcon-2021-god-told-me-to-end-tunisia-vs-mali-early-controversial-referee-sikazwe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/afcon-2021-god-told-me-to-end-tunisia-vs-mali-early-controversial-referee-sikazwe","title":{"rendered":"AFCON 2021: God told me to end Tunisia vs Mali early \u2013 Controversial referee, Sikazwe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Janny Sikazwe, the referee who blew for full-time early in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations clash between Tunisia and Mali, has claimed he could have died of heatstroke if the match went on any longer.<\/p>\n<p>The Zambian official sparked controversy when he ended the group-stage fixture 13 seconds early on January 12.<\/p>\n<p>Sikazwe had been forced to restart the match after blowing his full-time whistle five minutes before the full 90 minutes was up.<\/p>\n<p>Tunisia were losing 1-0 and playing against 10 men when Sikazwe ended the match early for a second time. It left members of their coaching staff furious and they stormed onto the pitch to confront the referee.<\/p>\n<p>However, Sikazwe has now thanked God for saving him from death.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have seen people going for duties outside the country and come back in a casket,\u201d he told reporters after arriving back in Zambia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was very close to coming back like that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was lucky I didn\u2019t go into a coma. It would have been a very different story.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think God told me to end the match. He saved me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\">Nigeria<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Janny Sikazwe, the referee who blew for full-time early in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations clash between Tunisia and Mali, has claimed he could have died of heatstroke if the match went on any longer. The Zambian official sparked controversy when he ended the group-stage fixture 13 seconds early on January [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":58696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,28,18,26],"tags":[5907,1570,2140,254,6621,6622],"class_list":["post-58697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-afcon-2021","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-nigeria-2","tag-nigeria","tag-sikazwe","tag-tunisia-vs-mali"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>AFCON 2021: God told me to end Tunisia vs Mali early \u2013 Controversial referee, Sikazwe - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Janny Sikazwe, the referee who blew for full-time early in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations clash between Tunisia and Mali ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/afcon-2021-god-told-me-to-end-tunisia-vs-mali-early-controversial-referee-sikazwe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AFCON 2021: God told me to end Tunisia vs Mali early \u2013 Controversial referee, Sikazwe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Janny Sikazwe, the referee who blew for full-time early in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations clash between Tunisia and Mali ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/afcon-2021-god-told-me-to-end-tunisia-vs-mali-early-controversial-referee-sikazwe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-02-02T17:33:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2022\/02\/img-61faba1ec4936.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/afcon-2021-god-told-me-to-end-tunisia-vs-mali-early-controversial-referee-sikazwe#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/afcon-2021-god-told-me-to-end-tunisia-vs-mali-early-controversial-referee-sikazwe\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"AFCON 2021: God told me to end Tunisia vs Mali early \u2013 Controversial referee, Sikazwe\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-02-02T17:33:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/afcon-2021-god-told-me-to-end-tunisia-vs-mali-early-controversial-referee-sikazwe\"},\"wordCount\":239,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/afcon-2021-god-told-me-to-end-tunisia-vs-mali-early-controversial-referee-sikazwe#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2022\/02\/img-61faba1ec4936.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"AFCON 2021\",\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Nigeria\",\"Nigeria\",\"Sikazwe\",\"Tunisia vs Mali\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"Sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/afcon-2021-god-told-me-to-end-tunisia-vs-mali-early-controversial-referee-sikazwe#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/afcon-2021-god-told-me-to-end-tunisia-vs-mali-early-controversial-referee-sikazwe\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/afcon-2021-god-told-me-to-end-tunisia-vs-mali-early-controversial-referee-sikazwe\",\"name\":\"AFCON 2021: God told me to end Tunisia vs Mali early \u2013 Controversial referee, Sikazwe - 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