CR Belouizdad tie postponed after Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling

CR Belouizdad’s CAF Confederation Cup second preliminary-round first leg against AS Douanes has been postponed indefinitely after an order from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), issued just 24 hours before kick-off.

The Algerian club had been due to travel to Nouakchott on Saturday to face AS Douanes, but the fixture was called off following a ruling linked to an ongoing dispute between the Mauritanian side and Guinea’s Hafia FC.

Hafia FC announced the decision in a statement on Friday, the day before the scheduled match. The club said CAS had ordered the postponement because the CAF decision citing force majeure had not included any reasoning, while Hafia’s internal appeal had received no response.

According to CAS, Hafia FC had submitted that appeal to the CAF Appeal Jury on 16 September 2026.

“This order constitutes an important victory for Hafia FC,” the Guinean club said as the legal process continued.

The dispute began after CAF instructed Hafia FC and AS Douanes to replay the second leg of their first-round tie. AS Douanes had failed to appear for the match in Conakry on 11 September.

Hafia FC challenged that decision, describing it as “unfounded”. The club also argued that AS Douanes’ absence resulted from “avoidable organisational failures” for which the Mauritanian club was responsible.

The CAS ruling has left the proposed CR Belouizdad and AS Douanes tie on hold. The match in Nouakchott was scheduled to be the opening game of that second-round contest, but the CAS order means there will be no fixture until the dispute has been resolved.

Should Hafia FC ultimately win the case, it would be declared the winner of the first-round tie by forfeit. In that event, the planned two-legged meeting between CR Belouizdad and AS Douanes would be cancelled automatically.

Hafia FC would instead face CR Belouizdad, with the dates for those matches to be decided at a later stage.

The CAS intervention follows Hafia’s appeal against CAF’s decision to order the replay after AS Douanes did not attend the Conakry fixture. The Guinean club had been awaiting a response from the CAF Appeal Jury since submitting its challenge on 16 September 2026.

For now, CR Belouizdad’s campaign in the CAF Confederation Cup is therefore suspended, with the club’s scheduled second-round tie unable to begin until the legal dispute involving Hafia FC and AS Douanes is settled.