History was rewritten yesterday when Morocco was awarded the Africa Cup of Nations title, a ruling which overturned Senegal’s chaotic victory in January.
The new verdict has awarded Morocco its first African title since 1976, while denying Senegal the chance to win its second title after also lifting the trophy in 2021.
According to the Confederation of African Football, its appeal board ruled that Senegal had forfeited the final match, which converted their 1-0 win in extra time into a 0-3 loss, defaulting a win for the hosts, Morocco.
On January 18th in Rabat, the Moroccan side was awarded a penalty late in the game, an event that was set to decide the match. The Senegalese players stormed off the pitch, led by their coach Pape Thiaw. Fans tried storming onto the field and play was halted for a full 17 minutes before Senegal reemerged from the dressing rooms.
The team’s return can be attributed to their star forward, Sadio Mané, who urged his team to finish the game and see through this result.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino criticized the Senegal coaches and players for their actions, which brought an acrimonious end to the final of an international competition.
“The ugly scenes witnessed [Sunday] must be condemned and never repeated,” posted Infantino on his Instagram story, “I expect that the relevant disciplinary bodies at CAF will take the appropriate measures.”
This wasn’t the only controversy which plagued the tournament. Many claims of match fixing, which favoured the host nation, Morocco, had also surfaced during the length of this tournament. The CAF president was also visibly annoyed when Senegal saved the penalty during the finals and subsequently scored the winning goal.
The verdict, which took 58 days after the finals were announced, is the right one at the end of the day.
Article 82 of the CAF regulations clearly states: If, for any reason whatsoever, a team … leaves the ground before the regular end of the match without the authorization of the referee, it shall be considered the loser and shall be eliminated for good from the current competition.
Article 84 of the same regulations also states that if Article 82 is contravened, “the team will lose the match by three-nil.”
You cannot abandon the pitch without permission, and if you do, you forfeit. It is a pretty basic and universal rule throughout all kinds and levels of competition. Refusing to play automatically means that you lose.
The regulations leave no room for argument. The entire case is cut and dry when looked at objectively. If something were to be complained about, it should be why the board took almost two whole months to announce this.
The referees could’ve announced this on the night of the game.
Senegal has already exercised their right to appeal this decision and is doing everything in their power to get this restored to the original result through the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS). The players have taken to social media to mock the Moroccan side and express their disappointment.
The argument: players did eventually return after a 17-minute delay of the game and Article 82 should not apply to that, along with the match official letting the game continue rather than making the stoppage then and there.
The entire decision lay on one person that night, and after an array of questionable calls and dealing with a never-before-seen situation, Jean-Jacques Ndala Ngambo felt like the loneliest man in that stadium.
Regardless of what the CAS decides, one side will be unhappy. There is no possible way for CAS to satisfy both sides with a verdict. The main goal after all of this should be to ensure that disciplinary processes happen quickly when cases are cut and dry. There aren’t mountains of evidence to go through. All this does is prolong verdicts and create more confusion and unrest in the coming months.
