{"id":565794,"date":"2026-03-26T14:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T14:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/565794\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T14:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T14:50:12","slug":"senegal-to-parade-afcon-trophy-as-football-federation-vows-crusade-against-decision-to-hand-morocco-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/565794\/","title":{"rendered":"Senegal to parade Afcon trophy as Football Federation vows ‘crusade’ against decision to hand Morocco title"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the controversial final in Rabat – in which Morocco and Real Madrid forward Brahim Diaz missed a Panenka penalty<\/a> to win the match in the 114th minute – the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) immediately lodged a complaint with Caf and Fifa, claiming that Senegal leaving the field of play “greatly affected the normal course of the match and the players’ morale”.<\/p>\n

Caf’s disciplinary committee initially rejected that appeal, instead issuing sanctions against both sides,<\/a> including a five-match ban for Senegal head coach Pape Thiaw, on 29 January.<\/p>\n

The FRMF said those original penalties did not “reflect the seriousness of the incidents”, and Caf’s appeal board agreed, releasing a statement on 17 March which said Senegal had contravened articles 82 and 84 of competition regulations.<\/p>\n

Article 82 states that if a team “leaves the ground before the regular end of the match without the authorisation of the referee”, they are eliminated.<\/p>\n

Senegal’s government responded by calling for an investigation into “suspected corruption”<\/a> at Caf, a claim rebuffed by the governing body’s president, Patrice Motsepe, who has been at pains to point out the appeal board’s independence.<\/p>\n

“It is important that the decisions of our Caf disciplinary board and the Caf appeals board are viewed with respect and integrity,” he said.<\/p>\n

The final decision on who claims the 2025 Afcon title now rests with Cas, sport’s highest judicial authority.<\/p>\n

“To wage this moral and legal crusade, we have appointed a team of seasoned professionals with undeniable expertise,” Fall announced in Paris, flanked by members of the FSF legal team.<\/p>\n

One of them, lawyer Seydou Diagne, called the decision to strip Senegal of their title “so blatant, so absurd, so irrational”.<\/p>\n

“The decision of the appeals jury cannot even be considered a true decision of sporting justice,” he added.<\/p>\n

“It is an unacceptable and intolerable attack on the fundamental rights of our national Football Federation.”<\/p>\n

Fellow lawyer Juan Perez said: “A match that was over, whose result had been decided by the referee, now being re-refereed, administratively – that’s unprecedented. You haven’t seen anything like it. It could change the world of football.”<\/p>\n

Caf recently updated the Afcon 2025 review on its website to list Morocco as winners, although that page now appears to have been taken down.<\/p>\n

With Senegal refusing to relinquish the trophy, and with Saturday’s planned parade a sign of their contempt, the battle to be crowned African champions is far from over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following the controversial final in Rabat – in which Morocco and Real Madrid forward Brahim Diaz missed a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-565794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565794","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=565794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}