FEATURE: Explainer – Why CAF may have gotten it wrong

Two months ago, Senegal lifted the AFCON trophy. This morning, they woke up stripped of it. CAF, African football’s governing body, has handed the title to Morocco via a 3-0 forfeit. And the football world is in uproar.

But here is the question you should be asking: did CAF actually follow the rules? Because when you look closely, the answer may be no.

Let me break it down simply.

• What actually happened in the final?

Late in normal time, Morocco were awarded a penalty after a VAR review. Some of Senegal’s players, led by their head coach, were furious and walked off the pitch. The match was suspended for around 14 minutes. But here is the key part: Sadio Mane intervened, called his teammates back, and the game resumed.

Morocco missed the penalty. The match went to extra time. And Senegal won 1-0. The full ninety-plus minutes were played. The referee restarted the game. The match finished.

• So why the forfeit?

CAF pointed to Articles 82 and 84 of the AFCON regulations, rules that say if a team leaves the pitch before the end of a match without the referee’s permission, they forfeit the game and their opponents get a 3-0 win. CAF says that is exactly what Senegal did.

But here is where it gets legally shaky, on multiple grounds.

The referee is the law on the pitch
Under international football’s Laws of the Game, the IFAB rules that govern every match on earth, the referee has full authority over what happens on the field. He decides when play stops. He decides when it resumes. And crucially, his factual decisions are final and binding (see IFAB Laws of the Game Law 5.2 (“Decisions of the referee”).

In this case, the referee chose to restart the match. He did not declare a forfeit on the spot. He let the game continue. That restart, in my respectful opinion, was a legal act. It validated everything that followed: the penalty miss, extra time, and Senegal’s winner.

By reversing that decision two months later, CAF’s Appeal Board was essentially overruling the referee’s call after the fact. That is constitutionally very problematic in football law.

Morocco made their choice, and that matters legally

Here is a point that has not received enough attention. When the referee restarted the match, Morocco had a choice. They could have refused to continue and lodged a formal protest on the spot. Instead, they walked back onto the pitch. Brahim Diaz stepped up and took that penalty. Morocco played through extra time, trying to win the match within the resumed game.

In law, there is a principle called volenti non fit injuria, which means roughly: to one who consents, no injury is done. If you voluntarily accept a situation, you cannot later claim it harmed you. Morocco consented to the resumed match the moment they participated in it. They were not passive bystanders. They were active, willing participants, all the way to the final whistle.

It is very difficult to then turn around and say the match should not have counted. Morocco’s appeal asks CAF to hand them a title they were simultaneously trying to win on the pitch. That is legally and morally contradictory. At the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Senegal’s lawyers will almost certainly raise this, and it is one of their strongest cards.

• The wrong rule for the wrong situation

Beyond all that, CAF applied the wrong rule. The forfeit provision, Article 82, was designed for teams that permanently abandon a match. A team that storms off and never comes back. That is not what happened here. Senegal left, returned under the referee’s authority, and the match concluded normally.

There is also the question of timing. Under AFCON’s own regulations, once 48 hours pass after a match with no formal protest, the result is automatically confirmed and locked in. That window closed. The 1-0 win was official. CAF then unlocked it anyway.

• What should have happened?

Past precedents in African and world football are clear: when players protest on the pitch, the standard sanctions are fines and suspensions, not title reversals. This is the first time in history that a global football tournament winner has been decided retrospectively by a governing body. That tells you everything. No rule explicitly allows a trophy to be stripped after it has been awarded, medals distributed, and a match officially concluded.

The proportionate response was punishment: heavy fines, bans, future competition sanctions. Not erasing a completed final.

• What happens next?

Senegal have rejected the ruling and will challenge it, with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, CAS, the likely destination. At CAS, the case against CAF runs on several tracks at once: the referee’s binding authority was ignored; the wrong rule was applied to the wrong facts; Morocco voluntarily consented to the resumed match; and the punishment is wildly disproportionate to anything permitted in the written regulations.

The Senegalese federation’s secretary general put it plainly: “The law is on our side. This decision is a travesty.”

Strong words. But legally? He may well be right.

Watch this space. The 2025 AFCON title fight is heading from the pitch to the courtroom, and it is far from over.

Source: Citi News Room