The South African Football Association's refereeing department has issued an update on Abongile Tom, who has been haunted by controversy following the MTN8 final between Orlando Pirates and Stellenbosch FC earlier this month.
Tom last officiated a domestic fixture with the MTN8 final on October, where, as confirmed by refereeing experts, he made two errors by allowing both Stellenbosch and Pirates to take set-pieces in wrongful positions, on both occasions leading to goals.
READ: Andile Mpisane warning for Royal AM ahead of Sundowns
Head of Referees at SAFA, Abdul Ebrahim, explains why the ref has been not doing PSL matches for the past two weeks.
"Abongile Tom is still a very active referee. He is currently at the COSAFA Women's Championship tournament in Port Elizabeth [Gqeberha]," says Ebrahim, giving an exclusive update to KickOff.
"From the game [MTN8 final], one or two recommendations were made, and our technical committee, as they always do week in and week out, they were dealing with recommendations.
"But Abongile Tom is still very much officiating. He is not suspended."
Ebrahim also touched on the good performances of all referees in the Carling Knockout Round of 16, save for a minor incident or two.
"Like I always say, we roll with the punches. Look, generally, the match officials are doing well. It's isolated incidents that people always comment about. The match officials are doing well week in and week out. We have isolated incidents where people assume that they have done badly.
"I mean, if you tell me we have 10 to 20 incidents that happened over the weekend, then we have something to worry about.
"We keep telling our match officials to stay focused. They need to remember that their job is not in the media, their job is on the field of play. That's where they need to focus and concentrate. We try our best to keep them motivated all the time."
Asked about the penalty appeal incident involving Patrick Maswanganyi in last Saturday's match between Orlando Pirates and Magesi FC, Ebrahim said at this stage it was difficult to comment.
READ | German minister on Chiefs: I'm very impressed with...
"I haven't received anything from the review, and I'm not sure if they've sat on that one.
"But yeah, if we have only one angle, then it's difficult to say whether we have a foul or not. So, we can't comment on the incident at all."