Football is a sport where the winner is often decided late in the game. But rarely has a title changed hands some two months after the final whistle.
Senegal lifted the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) trophy in January, after beating host nation Morocco in extra time in Rabat. Yet an appeal board established by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) sensationally intervened to strip the Teranga Lions of their prize, finding that Senegal forfeited the title by refusing to play following a controversial penalty call.
The farce developed deep stoppage time at the end of the 90. Moments after Senegal had a goal harshly disallowed, Morocco were awarded a penalty when the video assistant referee intervened to find that defender El Hadji Malick Diouf had fouled Moroccan Brahim Díaz. Senegal’s incensed players briefly stormed into the changing rooms, before eventually being coaxed back onto the field. After a 17-minute delay, Morocco’s Diaz fluffed the penalty, before Senegal went on to score a winning goal in extra time.
Morocco subsequently filed a complaint with CAF, after it initially decided to fine the Senegalese Football Federation, without reversing the result. The appeal board sided with the beaten team, ruling that Senegal “through the conduct of its team,” had violated Article 82 of the AFCON rulebook. This rule states that a team that “refuses to play or leaves the ground before the regular end of the match without the authorisation of the referee” shall forfeit the match.
Stevie Loughrey, partner at sports law firm Onside Law, told African Business that the CAF appeal board’s decision is “absolutely mad” and “completely bewildering”.
He explains that the board neglected to consider the “field of play doctrine”, which enshrines that the decision of the referee is final in a sporting contest. Even if the referee did make a mistake by allowing Senegal to resume the match after storming of the pitch, Loughrey says, CAF’s appeal board has made a major error by deciding it could alter the outcome of the final months after the event.
Barring some kind of fraud that was not apparent to the referee at the time – such as doping or match-fixing – Loughrey says the appeal board has opened a can of worms by overturning the on-field result.
“It’s disastrous commercially and for the sporting integrity of the competition,” he says. “You can’t have a situation where everyone’s gone off and celebrated, and then find out some lawyers in a room have sat down around the table and have decided now what everyone thought was the outcome is no longer the outcome.”
Appeal inevitable
The Senegalese Football Federation, unsurprisingly, has reacted with fury, accusing CAF of corruption in favouring Morocco with its unprecedented intervention.
“We will stop at nothing. The law is on our side. The fight is far from over. Senegal will defend its rights to the very end,” federation secretary-general Abdoulaye Seydou Sow told local television.
Senegal has already signalled its intent to appeal the decision before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the Swiss body that can intervene as the final arbiter of sporting disputes.
Loughrey says Senegal has a strong chance of success. “I suspect there will be a rather different outcome,” he says, noting that CAF has “completely turned all this body of case law and established doctrine on its head” by ignoring the field of play doctrine.
So, more than two months after the final, and despite CAF’s shock decision, the ultimate destination of the AFCON trophy remains in doubt.