Two months after the turbulent Africa Cup final, Morocco was surprisingly crowned the winner retrospectively. Now Senegal is appealing to the International Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The dispute over who won this year’s Africa Cup is entering the next round. Shortly after the African Football Confederation (CAF) surprisingly declared Morocco the winners on Tuesday evening, Senegal announced that it would take legal action.
According to an official statement, the national federation FSF “will initiate appeal proceedings before the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne as soon as possible to protect its rights and the interests of Senegalese soccer”.
“The decision brings African soccer into disrepute”
The FSF calls the CAF’s decision to retroactively award Morocco a 3-0 victory “unjust, unprecedented and unacceptable”. It “brings African soccer into disrepute”. The statement concludes: “The FSF reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the values of integrity and sporting fairness and will keep the public informed of the further progress of this matter.”
Senegal, led by former Munich player Sadio Mané, had won the Africa Cup final on January 18 in Rabat 1-0 after extra time. However, the team of national coach Pape Thiaw had left the field and gone into the catacombs in the final phase of regular time in protest against a penalty whistle for Morocco, and there had also been riots in the stands.
The game could only be resumed after a 15-minute interruption. The hosts missed the penalty kick in the person of Brahim Diaz before Pape Gueye scored the supposed winning goal in extra time.
The Moroccan FA had subsequently lodged an appeal against the scoring of the match, which the relevant disciplinary committee rejected at the end of January. The CAF has now overturned this decision and referred to Article 82, according to which a team is declared a loser and excluded from the ongoing competition if it “withdraws from the competition for any reason whatsoever, does not take part in a match, refuses to play or leaves the pitch before the normal end of the match without the referee’s permission”.
