{"id":548656,"date":"2026-03-18T15:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/548656\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T15:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:58:10","slug":"senegal-to-appeal-decision-to-award-afcon-title-to-morocco-africa-cup-of-nations-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/548656\/","title":{"rendered":"Senegal to appeal decision to award AFCON title to Morocco | Africa Cup of Nations News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Morocco were awarded the 2025 AFCON title following an appeal to CAF regarding Senegal\u2019s walk-off protest in final.<\/p>\n

Published On 18 Mar 202618 Mar 2026<\/p>\n

Senegal \u200chave condemned the decision to strip them of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title, labelling \u2060it \u201cunfair, unprecedented, and unacceptable\u201d, \u2060and saying it casts a shadow over African football.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Senegalese Football Federation denounces this unfair, unprecedented, and unacceptable decision, which casts a shadow over African football,\u201d it said \u2060in a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

\u201cTo defend its rights and the interests of \u2060Senegalese football, the federation will initiate an appeal as soon as possible before the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Morocco were declared African champions<\/a> on Tuesday after the Confederation of African Football\u2019s (CAF\u2019s) Appeals Board upheld their protest and \u2060found Senegal\u2019s walk-off protest during the final on January 18 were grounds for them to be disqualified and the match result declared 3-0 in favour of the hosts.<\/p>\n

Senegal won the final<\/a> 1-0 in Rabat \u2060with an extra-time goal, but not before staging a 14-minute walk-off after a penalty was awarded against them in stoppage time at the end of the regulation 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

The protest was instigated by coach Papa Bouna Thiaw, subsequently handed a lengthy ban<\/a>, and saw Senegal\u2019s veteran striker Sadio Mane emerge as a hero \u200cas he attempted to get his teammates back onto the field.<\/p>\n

Once Senegal returned to the pitch, the referee allowed play to continue with Morocco squandering the last-gasp penalty, and the encounter then went to extra time, with midfielder Pape Gueye netting the 94th-minute winner.<\/p>\n

However, the Appeals Board said that by walking off, Senegal contravened tournament regulations and forfeited the game.<\/p>\n

The Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) had to intervene in 2019 when Moroccan club Wydad Casablanca walked off in the second leg of \u2060the African Champions League final, also protesting against VAR.<\/p>\n

In that case, they refused to play on, and the referee declared opponents Esperance winners, \u2060but CAF\u2019s executive committee then surprisingly ordered a replay. Esperance took \u2060the matter to CAS and were declared champions, with CAF embarrassingly rebuked for attempting to override the referee\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

The decision by Congolese referee Jean-Jacques Ndala to continue with the AFCON final in January, rather than stop it and declare Morocco \u200cwinners after Senegal\u2019s walk-off, will likely feature strongly in any arguments for a reinstatement of Senegal as champions.<\/p>\n

The Laws of the Game state the referee\u2019s decision is final.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one could have imagined such \u200ca \u200cstatement two months after the final,\u201d said veteran coach Claude Le Roy, who managed Senegal between 1988 and 1992.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years, all the refereeing decisions have been flouted by the CAF,\u201d he said on French television.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Morocco were awarded the 2025 AFCON title following an appeal to CAF regarding Senegal\u2019s walk-off protest in final.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6074,189929,64,63,596,12241,24604,44,129796,588,85],"class_list":["post-548656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-africa","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-middle-east","tag-morocco","tag-news","tag-senegal","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}