Sacre Bleu – a Boardroom Champion!
On Tuesday, CAF, astonishingly awarded the 2025 AFCON to Morocco, stripping the on-field winners, Senegal, of the title. The CAF Appeal Board had determined that by the competition’s rules, when Senegal staged a 17-minute walkout during the final on 18 January 2026, they had forfeited the game. This was despite the match having resumed and been concluded after extra time with Senegal winning 1-0.
The exuberant jubilation that broke out in Morocco was matched by a stunned disbelief, then outrage, and ultimately, open defiance in Dakar. The Senegalese promised to appeal to the Court of Arbitration in Sports (CAS), the final arbiter in such matters, and accused CAF of corruption.
Lions’ Fangs
The West Africans might have a case. CAF’s Disciplinary Board, which first looked into the matter, limited its disciplinary decision to a bunch of fines and individual suspensions. But the Appeal Board, considering Morocco’s appeal on that initial decision, went further, or beserk if you’re Wolof or Jolof. Adjudging Senegal in breach of articles 82 and 84 of CAF’s AFCON Rules, the appeal panel held Morocco to have won the game by a default 3-0 margin and therefore the competition.
Article 82 of CAF’s AFCON Rules says:
“If, for any reason whatsoever, a team withdraws from the competition or does not report for a match, or refuses to play or leaves the ground before the regular end of the match without the authorization of the referee, it shall be considered loser and shall be eliminated for good from the current competition.”
Article 84 says:
“The team, which contravenes the provisions of articles 82 and 83, shall be eliminated for good from the competition. This team will lose its match by 3-0 unless the opponent has scored a more advantageous result at the time the match was interrupted, in this case [sic] this score will be maintained.”
Anyone who half paid attention during O’Level grammar class will immediately spot the problem with relying on article 84: “The team which contravenes…articles 82 AND 83…” Senegal had to have offended against both, and not just one of the two preceding rules, for article 84 to apply.
Article 83 provides that a team must be present on the ground and ready to play at the time fixed for kick-off. There is no question that Senegal complied with this article.
By the ordinary rules of legal interpretation, therefore, the CAF appeal panel’s insistence on article 84 seems about as prudent as the hapless Ruben Amorim’s fixation with a 3-4-3 formation at Manchester United.
We are left with article 82. The key phrase there is, “…leaves the ground before the regular end of the match without the authorization of the referee.” Senegal did leave the field before the regular end of the game. But the referee didn’t blow off the game and permitted Senegal to resume the match, so that regulation and extra time were eventually played. Could it be said in the circumstances that a breach of article 82 occurred? This is probably one of the thorniest questions the CAS panel must decide.
But even if that question were decided against Senegal, there are several potentially more powerful things in the West Africans’ favour. Who said marabout there? Bruv, the man dem is on a law ting innit, not dem ghost and tings?
Powers that Be
The first thing to consider is the CAF Disciplinary Code. Article 2.1 says, “The present Code applies to every disciplinary case and supersedes the regulations of every competition organized by CAF.” In other words, the Code is superior to the AFCON rules.
Section 2 of Chapter 1 of the Code then says that “during matches, disciplinary decisions are taken by the referee” and “these decisions are final.”
Jean-Jacques Ndala, the Congolese referee of the AFCON final, did not deem the walkout worthy of ending the game or any discipline beyond what he meted out on the pitch. By the Code, which, remember, overrides the AFCON Rules, the referee’s decision on that game is final, no?
However, muddying the waters is the next section of Chapter 1 of the Code, which says:
“The Disciplinary Board is responsible for:
• sanctioning infringements which may or may not have escaped the match officials’ attention;
• sanctioning all offences which occur prior to, during, or after a fixture;
• rectifying obvious errors in disciplinary decisions based on referees’ reports;
• extending the duration of suspensions incurred automatically by an expulsion;
• pronouncing additional sanctions to those imposed by the referee, such as a fine.”
Yet, the Disciplinary Board did not see it fit to award the match to Morocco, which then appealed that decision to the Appeal Board.
Article 56.1 of the Disciplinary Code, however, says that “The appellant may contest any decision of fact with the exception of the Laws of the Game as applied by the referee.”
Article 4 of the Code defines “The Laws of the Game” as “the Laws of the Game issued by the International Football Association Board.”
Law 5.2 of IFAB’s 2025-26 Laws of the Game says:
“Decisions will be made to the best of the referee’s ability according to the Laws of the Game and the ‘spirit of the game’ and will be based on the opinion of the referee, who has the discretion to take appropriate action within the framework of the Laws of the Game. The decisions of the referee regarding facts connected with play, including whether or not a goal is scored and the result of the match, are final. The decisions of the referee, and all other match officials, must always be respected.”
The referee’s decision on the result of the final was clearly that the match ended normally at the end of extra time, and Senegal won it by a lone goal. By CAF’s Disciplinary Code, which – please remember – overrides CAF’s Afcon Rules, Morocco, as appellant, could contest any decision of fact before the Appeals Board “with the exception of the Laws of the Game as applied by the referee.”
Remember also that the Laws of the Game say that the referee’s decisions “regarding facts connected with play, including…the result of the match, are final.”
If Senegal goes to CAS, their odds of winning should at least be even with those of Spurs getting relegated – in other words, more likely than not at about 13/5 as we write.
Of Refereeing Oddities and Tacticals
The good thing for apoplectic Senegalese and neutrals across Africa is that CAS is out of CAF’s hands. As the AFCON had progressed, suspicion began to be expressed on social media that CAF was doing everything to appease their go-to hosts of recent CAF competitions.
The 2025 AFCON was, like all previous tournaments hosted by the Moroccans, well organized. Alas, from early on, fans of Morocco’s opponents and neutrals alike started to tut-tut (or angh-angh, if you’re Nigerian) at the seeming lopsided nature of refereeing calls in favour of the hosts.
By Morocco’s semi-final against Nigeria, decided on penalties after extra time, the rumblings of discontent were full-blown cries of fa-fa-fa-foul! Nigeria’s wingback, Bright Osayi-Samuel, congratulated the Morrocans for prevailing 4-2 in the shootout but minced no words in deprecating the refereeing favouritism, for the Moroccans, that he (and plenty a Nigerian) perceived during the game.
Many African football fans shared Osayi-Samuel’s sentiments, having become used to that kind of mago mago – okay, hanky panky, if you talk like King Charles, or perhaps more appropriately, his brother, Andrew – in their local leagues. Home teams’ hospitality for referees, called “Tactical” in Nigerian football idiom, ensures stranger refereeing outcomes in favour of home teams than misshapen BBLs on the TV series, Botched.
Having dispatched Nigeria’s hitherto rampaging Super Eagles, Morocco’s Atlas Lions squared up to Senegal’s Teranga Lions in the final.
With the match goalless and on a knife edge in stoppage time, Senegal scored. Or so they thought. The match officials had spotted a phantom foul by Aboulaye Seck on Achraf Hakimi despite TV replays showing no contact.
Then, minutes later, reminiscent of many “Tactical”-inspired sequences in Nigeria domestic football, the referee awarded a penalty at the other end in what would probably be the last kick of the game. Incensed, Senegalese coach, Pape Thiaw, ordered his team off the pitch.
The stalemate lasted 17 minutes before the Senegalese returned to the field to resume play, urged on by Sadio Mane, their superstar captain, who had remained on the pitch. Morocco’s Brahim Diaz, the leading scorer in the tournament, opted for the chipped penalty – a Panenka – down the middle. It was a woeful effort and an easy save for Edouard Mendy, the Senegalese goalie.
The game went to extra time and was settled by none other than Mane, the former Liverpool forward rifling in from the edge of the 18. It was a deserved victory, with many pundits having held out Senegal as the best team at the tournament.
Now, Take That
The mood in Senegal since CAF’s unprecedented coup d’etat is best captured perhaps by Moussa Niakhate, who was involved in the epic final. The Senegalese defender, who plys his trade at French club, Olympique Lyonnais, posted a photo of himself holding the AFCON trophy with the legend, “Let them come and get it – crazy people.” It might ultimately be down to arbitrators at CAS in Switzerland to determine who has been the craziest in all this.
