Five referees sent home from CAN 2013

Mali's Koman Coulibaly (photo), who took charge of the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations final, is one of the referees leaving this year's tournament after the completion of the group stage, CAF officials have confirmed. The 42-year-old has officiated at seven African Nations Cups, but is probably best known for disallowing what seemed a perfectly legitimate United States goal against Slovenia at the World Cup finals in South Africa three years ago. Although he has avoided major controversy at this tournament, his handling of host South Africa's group A match against Angola came in for widespread media criticism for a series of debatable calls.
Also leaving is Noumandiez Doue, from Cote d'Ivoire, who failed to send off the Ghana goalkeeper for denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity in the match against Mali in group B. Doue is on the list of prospective referees for the FIFA World Cup 2014.
South African referee Daniel Bennett booked the wrong player, awarded two soft penalties and denied another obvious penalty kick when Togo met Tunisia in Nelspruit.
Madagascan official Hamada Nampiandraza is another referee heading home after he appeared to lose all sense of time during Togo's group D match against Algeria on Saturday after stopping the match in the 86th minute when a goal began to lean. The match was held up for 13 minutes while the post was repaired but when play resumed, instead of playing the last four minutes plus stoppage time, he played 16 more minutes - adding how long it took to fix the goal to the actual playing time. The situation could have led to deep embarrassment for the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and the match possibly needing to be replayed had a decisive goal been scored in the time added on by mistake. In the event, Togo, already 1-0 ahead, scored a second goal soon after play had restarted.

Egyptian referee Ghead Grisha awarded a highly controversial penalty to Zambia in the group C clash against Nigeria, who accused him of "making one of the worst decisions in the history of football" and subsequently dispatched a strongly-worded protest to the Confederation of African Football. “Grisha will referee no further matches at this Nations Cup. His decisions did not tally with best practices of the refereeing profession and we would not allow anyone to start re-writing the rules of the game here”, said a CAF official.

Source: SuperSport/Yahoo Sports