The standard of refereeing in South Africa's Premier Soccer League is reaching a crisis point for a competition that likes to trumpet itself as the best on the African continent, and comparable with many in Europe.
The utterly shambolic scenes in Friday's night's encounter between Cape Town City and Polokwane City highlight what is a growing trend of match officials who are simply not up to the job being appointed.
Even Cape Town City coach Benni McCarthy, who's side won the match, admitted in the post-game interview that it was becoming difficult for him to coach in South Africa with the standard of the referees.
In what is a high-stakes league, where millions of Rands can be won or lost on the decisions of the match officials, mistakes should be a rarity, but these days barely a single round of fixtures goes by without a number of contentious decisions.
There does not appear to be anything mischievous in the action of the officials, it is simply incompetence, but it is ruining the product and turning fans off watching the games.
The officiating on Friday night beggared belief and led to an error that you would likely not find in amateur football.
Late in the game, Cape Town City were on the attack from a corner and the ball cleared out. Mpho Matsi fired a shot towards goal, which was intercepted by teammate Lehlohonolo Majoro about level with the penalty spot.
Assistant referee Patrick Jaftha flagged for offside and rookie referee Cedrick Muvhali blew his whistle, but, incredibly, what both officials had missed was that there was a Polokwane City player who was standing on his own goalline, playing Majoro onside.
The away players all stopped on hearing the whistle, but Majoro went on to complete the act of scoring the goal.
Muvhali then gave the goal, which led to a furious response from the Polokwane players, who were too robust in their protestations and manhandled the official.
After consulting his assistant, Muvhali then disallowed the goal and re-started the game with a drop-ball.
It was a staggering piece of incompetence and created the kind of ugly scenes and reactions from players that should lead to punishment by the league. But their frustration is understandable.
The match officials had created a situation that left both sides aggrieved, and rightly so.
Cape Town City had a good goal chalked off, while Polokwane City could rightly claim that they stopped playing when they heard the officials' whistle. Both are genuine points of view.
It was almost inevitable then that in the seventh minute of injury-time, with almost the last kick of the game, Muvhali awarded Cape Town City a soft penalty that was converted by Majoro.
Perhaps justice was done, but how we got to that result should be of serious concern to the PSL.
To be fair to them, they do not manage or appoint match officials, that is the job of the South African Football Association (SAFA).
But the PSL have also resisted what would seem to be a logical step of creating a professional referees' panel, rather than relying on what are essentially amateur operators who have day jobs away from the game.
By investing in a professional panel, the referees can go through more training, spending more time making sure they have the required fitness, and also be held more accountable for their actions.
But this is clearly not viewed as a sound investment of the billions of Rands that flows into the South African game by the PSL, even if their product is becoming poorer and poorer.
It was a point picked out by McCarthy this week after his side bore the brunt of another poor decision when they had what looked a legitimate goal chalked off in their 1-0 loss to Orlando Pirates.
"I think for me that's our biggest thing that's keeping our football a little bit behind - because you see the quality and the talent out there," he told reporters after the game.
"The referee killed a little bit a good game of football. But‚ ja‚ when you are on the losing side people are always going to say‚ 'Excuses‚ excuses'.
"But I say this every week now‚ since I've started my coaching career. Every game I've not been happy with the referee with their decision-making - when you score legitimate goals and then it gets disallowed without even giving the coaches an explanation on why.
"When you watch European football‚ referees give the coach an explanation because they've got the right to know why goals were disallowed. And here it's: 'Our way or the highway'.
Poor Polokwane City coach Bernard Molekwa, whose side suffered a fourth successive defeat, looked close to tears in his post-match interview on Friday, perhaps knowing something we don't when he said coaches could lose their jobs on the basis of such decisions.
And he is not wrong.