{"id":352092,"date":"2026-03-18T05:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/352092\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T05:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:56:08","slug":"senegal-stripped-of-africa-cup-of-nations-title-over-protest-in-final-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/352092\/","title":{"rendered":"Senegal stripped of Africa Cup of Nations title over protest in final \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/morocco\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/morocco\/\">Morocco<\/a> have been named as Africa Cup of Nations champions, with Senegal\u2019s controversial win overturned two months after its acrimonious conclusion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Confederation of African Football (Caf) has made the dramatic decision after an appeal board determined the Senegal team had forfeited the match when they left the field in protest at a disputed penalty deep in stoppage time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The walk off, instigated by coach Pape Thiaw, led to a lengthy delay, and when the game was belatedly restarted, Brahim Diaz saw his spot-kick saved by Edouard Mendy. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Pape Gueye went on to score the winning goal in extra time but there was unrest in the crowd and recriminations in the aftermath.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Having studied the circumstances, the appeal board took the unprecedented step of reversing the result \u2013 effectively stripping Senegal of the trophy and handing it to the tournament hosts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The judgment sees the match recorded as a 3-0 win for Morocco, who are now celebrating their second Afcon title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A statement read: \u201cThe Caf Appeal Board decided that in application of Article 84 of the regulations &#8230; the Senegal national team is declared to have forfeited the final match of the TotalEnergies Caf Africa Cup of Nations with the result of the match being recorded as 3\u20130 in favour of the Federation Royale Marocaine de Football (Frmf).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cAll other motions or prayers for relief are dismissed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Among the Senegal players to lose their champion status are former Liverpool striker Sadio Mane, Everton pair Idrissa Gueye and Iliman Ndiaye, Chelsea\u2019s Mamadou Sarr and his on-loan team-mate Nicolas Jackson, West Ham\u2019s El Hadji Malick Diouf and Crystal Palace\u2019s Ismaila Sarr.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Manchester United\u2019s Noussair Mazraoui, meanwhile, can savour a belated triumph alongside PSG\u2019s Achraf Hakimi and Real Madrid\u2019s Diaz.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Morocco welcomed the verdict in an initial response, which read: \u201cThe Federation wishes to recall that its approach has never been intended to challenge the sporting performance of the teams participating in this competition, but solely to request the application of the competition\u2019s regulations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThe Federation reaffirms its commitment to respecting the rules, ensuring clarity in the competitive framework, and maintaining stability within African competitions. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt also wishes to commend all the nations that took part in this edition of the Afcon, which has been a major moment for African football. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThe Federation will make an official statement tomorrow, after convening its governing bodies.\u201d \u2013 PA<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/soccer\/2026\/01\/29\/senegal-boss-pape-thiaw-handed-five-match-ban-over-africa-cup-of-nations-final-walk-off\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Senegal boss Pape Thiaw handed five-match ban over Africa Cup of Nations final walk-offOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Morocco have been named as Africa Cup of Nations champions, with Senegal\u2019s controversial win overturned two months after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,30898,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-352092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-morocco","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}