Senegal v Morocco: CAS hearing over 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final set for Thursday

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will hear representatives of Senegal, Morocco and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) on Thursday as it considers the dispute over the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final.

The hearing follows several months of written proceedings and will examine the Senegalese Football Federation’s appeal against the decision to award the title to Morocco by forfeit. It will take place at the CAS headquarters in Lausanne on Thursday, 8 October, but no verdict is expected immediately.

Proceedings will begin at 09:30 (GMT+2) and are expected to continue into the afternoon, according to the CAS’s most recent statement. The hearing will be held behind closed doors, meaning media representatives will not be allowed to attend the exchanges between the parties and the arbitrators.

The three-member panel will be chaired by French arbitrator Gerald Simon, with Italy’s Luigi Fumagalli and Germany’s Ulrich Haas also sitting on the case. They will consider the arguments submitted by Senegal, CAF and the Federation Royale Marocaine de Football (FRMF), alongside the written evidence already included in the file.

The hearing will be conducted in French, allowing each party to present its arguments directly to the panel.

The chair will control the proceedings and ensure that interventions remain concise and focused on points already raised in the written submissions. The parties will then present their arguments before any witnesses or experts named in advance are heard. Final submissions will follow, with the respondent CAF or Morocco speaking last.

The panel is expected to focus on the events of the final and their legal interpretation. Key issues include the temporary departure of Senegal’s players, their return to the pitch and the resumption of the match under the authority of referee Jean-Jacques Ndala.

CAS must also decide whether Articles 82 and 84 of the Africa Cup of Nations regulations allowed CAF to overturn the result recorded on the pitch retrospectively.

The arbitrators may question representatives directly to clarify elements of their submissions and can request additional material if they believe further explanation is necessary.

The ruling will not be delivered at the end of Thursday’s hearing. Once the arguments have been completed, the panel will retire to deliberate. No date has been announced for the final decision.

“Generally speaking, only one hearing will be organised,” the CAS regulations state. However, the scale of the case leaves open the possibility of further proceedings.

“We will have the first meeting of CAS on 8 October. It will not be the last,” Fouzi Lekjaa, president of the Federation Royale Marocaine de Football, recently told Jeune Afrique. Any subsequent hearing could take place only before the three arbitrators, without the parties being present.

CAS has three principal options: uphold Senegal’s forfeit and Morocco’s title, issue a new decision recognising Senegal as the winner based on the result on the pitch, or overturn the CAF appeal jury’s decision and refer the case back to the competent body.

Thursday will therefore be a day of final arguments, rather than a verdict, in one of the most sensitive disputes in recent African football.