The decision by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to strip Senegal of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title and award it to Morocco corrected an injustice but it was not up to CAF to give the final say. It was up to the referee. Plus, it was awfully belated, writes Alaa Abdel-Ghani.
You might recall the unsavoury events of that final in Rabat on the night of 18 January: Senegal’s dubiously disallowed winner; Morocco awarded a highly contentious penalty deep in injury time; the Senegal players walking off the pitch led by their coach Pape Thiaw; those same players re-entering the pitch; Morocco’s Brahim Diaz taking an ill-advised Panenka penalty kick that was easily saved by Senegal keeper Edouard Mendy, forcing the game into extra time; and in the first overtime period, Pape Gueye scoring the goal that gave Senegal a 1-0 win.
That sequence of events doesn’t tell the whole story. The violence in the stands during that walkout between Senegal supporters and Moroccan authorities. Scuffles breaking out between rival players, while furious Senegal fans behind one of the goals trying to reach the field, where they battled with stewards.
CAF’s decision last week to overturn the ruling was based on their application of the tournament regulations – and specifically Article 82 – which state unequivocally that “if, for any reason whatsoever, a team withdraws from the competition or does not report for a match, or refuses to play or leaves the ground before the regular end of the match without the authorisation of the referee, it shall be considered [the] loser and shall be eliminated for good from the current competition.”
Article 84 goes on to state that if you contravene Article 82 you “will lose [the] match by three-nil.”
That’s it. That’s all you need to know. You can’t abandon the field of play without permission during a game and, if you do, you forfeit. It’s crystal clear. Absent a football riot, absolutely nothing justifies walking off – disallowed goal, soft penalty, nothing. If you refuse to play for whatever reason, you lose. It didn’t need 58 days to think about it.
The rules of football also clearly state that the referee’s decision, not that of VAR or CAF, is final, and here, his decision was clear. Play on.
Congolese referee Jean-Jacques Ndala Ngambo, alone or in consultation with his assistants, we do not know, did not annul the match during the Senegal walkout and award the title to Morocco.
The minute Ndala allowed Diaz to take the penalty, this game was still on and headed into extra time.
Ndala decided to allow the game to reach its conclusion. And once he did this, once he gave the call to wave play on, then his decision could not be overturned.
Certainly, it needed a courageous referee to forfeit the game even it were within his powers. And we must sympathise with Ndala who must have felt like the loneliest person in the world that night. He tried everything in his powers to have the match resumed, apparently seeking to avoid becoming known as the referee who settled a major continental final by default.
Instead, he allowed tempers to cool, he ensured that the row between the Senegal supporters and the Moroccan police had been brought under control, allowed play to resume and invited Diaz to take his penalty.
But Ndala should have ruled the game a forfeit. If players leave the field of play without his permission, he is supposed to issue yellow cards, and if they don’t return within a “reasonable amount of time,” he has the power to abandon the match and call it for the other team. What’s a “reasonable amount of time”? It’s not specified, although it should be. Five minutes, seven minutes, whatever. A number must be given. However, common sense would suggest that a “reasonable amount of time” is considerably less than what we saw that night – 17 minutes.
Much has been made of how many Senegal players actually left the field but there were several. Let’s say, even if they had all remained on the pitch, the simple obvious truth is that they did not want to resume play.
One day following the match, Morocco filed an appeal with the CAF disciplinary board, asking for a Senegal forfeiture but, crucially, CAF rejected the Moroccan appeal.
Note that when CAF’s Disciplinary Committee met on 28 January to dish out the punishments for the shameful scenes that accompanied the final, there was no mention, at that time, of the title being taken from Senegal, let alone being awarded to Morocco.
The Senegalese’s football federation cannot appeal to CAF, but said it will appeal CAF’s decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, a process that typically takes between six months and a year to deliver a verdict, while the Senegalese government slammed the “grossly illegal and deeply unjust decision” and called for an international investigation “into suspected corruption” within African soccer’s governing body.
They could also argue that, despite their walk-off just before the Morocco penalty, Ndala did successfully complete the game.
Now a controversial AFCON final has become something much more, with CAF believing it has remedied in a boardroom something that should have only been settled by the referee on the turf.
When CAF stepped in two months later to overturn the outcome, while it applied the rules, it rewrote history and altered a story that the public had already accepted.
But just like that, the official result of the match in Rabat is now a 3-0 win for Morocco, despite none of their players having scored a goal for them across its 120 minutes.
The ruling made the whole thing feel as if it were a huge waste of time for everyone other than maybe Moroccans.
Moroccans were understandably full of celebrations but what kind of ‘victory’ is this? Is there any joy for the players, in having ‘won’ a title in such a way? The elation feels contrived and artificial.
As for CAF, since it took it upon itself to overturn the decision, it undermined the referee and his authority. What, then, is the point of having a referee? What’s the point of having referees if their decisions carry no weight? If we determine that the referee’s calls are no longer final, two months after the fact, then where do we draw the line? What else will be appealed?
The value of a final also does not rest solely on the final result. It is a story of how it got there. A major competition like AFCON produces a kaleidoscope of images, heroes, villains, excitement, despair, memories. It also promises an ending. A winner should emerge in a way that is understood by everybody. When an institution later changes the narrative, it messes up the established order.
Ndala blundered big time. He should have ended the match after the Senegal walkout and proclaimed Morocco the winner right then and there.
In its attempt to right a wrong, CAF made a booboo just as big by undermining Ndala’s authority.
You don’t correct a mistake with another mistake.
Football matches are won on the field, not in an office.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 26 March, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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