A Ghanaian referee, Charles Bulu, lost consciousness and collapsed on Tuesday afternoon while officiating the Cote d’Ivoire and Ethiopia qualifying match for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations scheduled to be hosted in Cameroon next January.
The Elephants today locked horns with their counterpart from the East African country in the final Group K match of the qualifiers.
In Abidjan, the Ivorians quickly built a two-goal advantage as Willy Boly scored and Franck Kessie converted a penalty.
Getaneh Kebede halved the deficit on 74 minutes only for Jean Kouassi to score the third goal for the Ivory Coast almost immediately.
Handling the match as the centre referee, all went well in the first half until the last 10 minutes when the match had to be abandoned following a moment of scare.
The referee momentarily lost consciousness and collapsed.
There was panic as players and officials rushed to resuscitate him. His condition was not immediately known.
Although he subsequently regained consciousness after a long delay, he had to be stretched off for further examination.
Ethiopia were losing 3-1 to already-qualified Ivory Coast in Abidjan after 80 minutes when the Ghanaian referee collapsed and the visiting team refused to continue under the fourth official, an Ivorian.
The Ivorian was a late pre-match replacement after the original referee from Ghana withdrew, leading to his compatriot being promoted from the fourth official to match referee.
Consequently, the Assistant Referee I for the match called both team captains and suspended the game.
The match was hence abandoned with 10 minutes to play where the home team was leading 3-1.
The remaining three places will be filled later Tuesday with Congo Brazzaville and Guinea-Bissau (Group I), Sierra Leone and Benin (Group L) and Cape Verde, Rwanda and Mozambique (Group F) in contention.
Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Comoros, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia and Zimbabwe are the other qualifiers.
