Football: 2025 Africa Cup of Nations Result Overturned
By Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw
It has been reported that Morocco have been declared the winners of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations after the Confederation of African Football (CAF) overturned the result of the final following the controversial walk-off of Senegal.
Gianni Infantino, the President of FIFA, strongly condemned what he called the "ugly scenes" of the final.
In the final, on 18 January 2026, Senegal beat Morocco 1-0 in a match in which the Senegalese players refused to play after the hosts were awarded a stoppage-time penalty with the match goalless.
Following a delay of about 17 minutes, the Senegalese players returned to the pitch, and the penalty of Brahim Diaz was saved before Pape Gueye of Senegal scored an extra-time winning goal.
However, the result has now been overturned by a decision of the appeal board of the governing body of African football.
CAF stated that Senegal are "declared to have forfeited the final match" with the "result of the match being recorded as 3-0 in favour" of Morocco, adding that "through the conduct of its team"
Senegal infringed Article 82 of the Regulations of the Africa Cup of Nations and thus Article 84 of the Regulations applied.
Article 82 provides that, if a team refuses to play or leaves the ground before the end of the regulation time without the referee's authorisation, it will be considered the loser and eliminated from the competition.
And Article 84 provides that any team that infringes Article 82 will be permanently eliminated and will lose the match 3-0.
The Senegalese Football Federation stated that it would appeal against the CAF decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), describing it as "an unfair, unprecedented and unacceptable decision which brings discredit to African football".
It will be interesting to see what CAS makes of this case, in due course.
Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw may be contacted by e-mail at ‘
