Former referee Victor Hlungwane has opened up on whether Bafana Bafana benefited with their early penalty against Namibia.
Bafana received an early penalty against the Brave Warriors in their second group game at the Africa Cup of Nations thanks to the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) officials, who viewed the incident where Riaan Hanamub touched Thapelo Morena's cross with the hand in the box.
The penalty scored by Percy Tau gave South Africa momentum, as they went on to score three further goals and recorded their biggest margin of victory at the Africa Cup of Nations after thrashing their Southern African neighbours 4-0.
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Opposition players such as Peter Shalulile seemed to doubt whether the penalty was legitimate.
"The approach was fine, early penalty but who am I to say that's not a penalty? That gave them the energy to keep going," Shalulile said to the media after the game.
Hlungwane has clarified the matter with the interpretation of the law.
"The law says it is an offense if a player deliberately touches the ball with their hand or arm, for example, moving the hand or the arm towards the ball," Hlungwane said on Metro FM Sports.
"Did Hanamub's hand move towards the ball? The answer is yes, so what is Shalulile crying about? Because in terms of the law he's defeated.
"The ref did not see it, he was helped by the VAR, the hand moved towards the ball, good decision by the referee," he added.
However, Deon Hotto, who scored the historic goal that gave Namibia their first victory at AFCON after beating Tunisia in their opening game, admitted that Bafana were good and they had an off day.
"To be honest, it wasn't a good one in the office but credit to South Africa. For us as Namibians, we just need to regroup again and look forward to the last game against Mali," Hotto told journalists.
"There wasn't any surprise because when we got the first eleven, we knew already Thapelo (Morena) is obviously gonna play on the wing and (Grant) Kekana will slot in where Siyanda Xulu was playing so, we knew what they were bringing so credit to them. It did work for them and for us, it didn't work, we just have to regroup and chin up again," he added.
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