Spanish newspaper AS has analyzed Morocco’s legal complaint against Senegal following the chaotic 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final, explaining why the case is unlikely to change the tournament’s sporting outcome despite strong legal arguments.
Morocco has filed proceedings with FIFA and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) targeting the Senegalese federation over the team’s behavior during the final in Rabat.
AS reports that Morocco’s case is built on Article 82, paragraph 35 of CAF’s regulations, which deals with withdrawals. The article states that if a team withdraws from a competition, refuses to play, fails to appear or leaves the field before the end of the match without the referee’s permission, it will be considered to have lost and will be excluded from the ongoing tournament. Moroccan officials argue that when most Senegal players and staff left the pitch for more than 15 minutes after a penalty was awarded to Morocco, the conditions of that article were met.
The complaint also cites additional evidence, including a Snapchat video from Senegal and Paris Saint-Germain player Ibrahima Mbaye filmed inside the dressing room during the interruption, in which he claimed “they are stealing from us” before later apologizing.
Morocco’s federation believes these actions clearly show that Senegal effectively withdrew and that the match should have been ended at that moment under CAF rules.
However, AS notes that the game was eventually resumed with the approval of the referee and both teams, which severely weakens any attempt to overturn the result.
For this reason, the paper considers it practically impossible that Senegal will be stripped of the title or that the trophy will be left vacant, despite talk in some circles of such a sanction.
Instead, the most likely outcome is disciplinary punishment targeting Senegalese officials held responsible for what AS calls one of the most embarrassing scenes African football has witnessed in recent years.
