Bennett to officiate in the DRC
Referee Daniel Bennett, one of just a handful of top officials to pass the pre-season South African Football Association fitness tests last weekend, is heading off to handle a key African Champions League tie on Sunday.
Bennett takes charge of the Group A match between hosts TP Mazembe Englebert of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Ghanaian club Berekum Chelsea in Lubumbashi on Sunday.
He will be accompanied by Enoch Molefe and Zakhele Siwela.
Molefe was a linesman at the last World Cup finals and the youthful Siwela is on the shortlist for the next tournament in Brazil.
Both Bennett and Siwela were in action on Wednesday in the opening match of Manchester United’s brief tour of South Africa when they beat AmaZulu 1-0 in Durban
Daniel Volgraaf is due to also travel as fourth official but he was too ill to take the re-run tests of South African match officials on Thursday.
If he does travel it will call into question the ethics of accepting an appointment, for which there is a handsome fee, while being patently unfit to perform should he be called upon to do so.
Mazembe will be seeking their first points of the group campaign after losing their opening group match earlier this month. Berekum Chelsea are debutants in the group phase and beat heavyweights Zamalek of Egypt in their first group game a fortnight ago.
