A hard-fought Senegalese victory over Morocco in the AFCON (African Cup of Nations) final has recently sparked controversy, as the title has been taken from Senegal and given to Morocco.
“I’m very joyous,” said Moroccan sophomore Maysae Fsahi.
Two weeks ago, on Tuesday, March 17, CAF (Confederation of African Football) claimed that Senegal forfeited the match when they left the field for 15 minutes in protest of a penalty given to Morocco.
“Leaving the field wasn’t very professional,” said Moroccan sophomore Rita Nassaf.
When Senegal returned to the field, the penalty was missed by Moroccan attacker, Brahim Dias, and the match continued to extra time. Senegal went on to score in extra-time, with the goal coming from Senegalese midfielder Pape Gueye, and Senegal held on to this lead and defeated Morocco 1-0.
This final took place on Sunday, January 18, and CAF has only recently announced its decision to overturn Senegal’s win.
Article 64 of CAF’s official AFCON rulebook says “If, for any reason whatsoever, a team withdraws from the competition or does not report for a match… or refuses to play or leaves the ground before the regular end of the match without the authorisation of the referee, it shall be considered looser and shall be eliminated for good from the current competition”.
According to this, Senegal did in fact forfeit the match by leaving the field; most of the backlash and controversy have come because of how long it took CAF to make this decision.
“I feel like Morocco should have been awarded at the time when the game was live,” said Nassaf
Most Moroccans agree that the win should have been given to Morocco immediately, because the forfeit rule is not new. The AFCON rulebook clearly states that a team that leaves the pitch unauthorized by the referee has forfeited the match, and the win shall be given to the opposing team right then and there, not two months later.
This incident shows that while events like this are rare, football is an imperfect sport where mistakes are made. Sometimes they don’t really matter, and the game goes on like nothing ever happened. Other times, the mistakes can impact an entire nation and cause controversy around the entire world.
