Al Ahly Benghazi have filed a formal complaint against Orlando Pirates to Confederation of African Football (CAF) over tampered COVID-19 results.
The Libyan Premiership giants are on the brink of exiting the CAF Confederation Cup after suffering a 3-0 loss to Pirates.
However, Benghazi in a statement on their club official website translated from Arabic, said a recent COVID-19 swab conducted on players and officials who were said to have tested positive all retuned negative.
The statement read: “There have been negative results for our players and assistant coach after they were ‘infected’ two days ago.
“We recently conducted the coronavirus swabs for our infected players and the technical staff in Egypt. And the appearance of all samples is negative.”
“Assistant coach Anis Al-Rubaie, a negative result of his analysis appeared in South Africa, before his departure to Tunisia.
“Al Ahly is surprised to [see] changes [in] all the infected from a positive to a negative [result] in just two days, which raises suspicion and doubts.
“The club will file an urgent complaint to the CAF to investigate the facts accompanying the Orlando Pirates match in the fourth round of the Confederation Cup group.”
It is not the first time CAF will receive allegations of such a manner this season, with Sudanese side Al-Merrikh notably losing their case against Simba SC last month.
Al Ahly’s next games will be against ES Setif away before hosting Enyimba at home in their final Group A fixture.
It remains to be seen how CAF will respond to these allegations but such issues have clouded the reputation behind continental competitions at large. Basically, many teams are perceived to always aim to destabilize their opponents by any means possible at all. Asides club football, this particular issue spreads to national football as well.
A perfect example of the above happened when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and his Gabon teammates were forced to sleep on the floor at the airport ahead of their AFCON qualifier against Gambia at the time.
Back to club football, with Al Ahly’s chances of progressing now rather slim, one can expect that they will take this case and drag it on for as long as they can.
Orlando Pirates will remain unbothered and continue to go about their business as they prepare for a big clash against Mamelodi Sundowns in the Nedbank Cup on Thursday.