Morocco know who really won AFCON – farcical CAF decision can’t change that

The Confederation of African Football’s Appeal Board has overturned the result of the 2025 AFCON Final and has turned Senegal’s 1-0 win into a 3-0 defeat

It was some night for the brilliant Achraf Hakimi on Tuesday – outstanding in Paris Saint-Germain’s dismantling of Chelsea and simultaneously winning a major international tournament.

It looked as though some of his PSG team-mates were trying to tell him the news from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and it looked like Hakimi did not believe them.

And why would he? Why would he believe CAF would bring its own tournament – what should be its own pride and joy – into disrepute?

More significantly, did Hakimi celebrate late into the London (or Paris) night after being reassured the news was genuine? Of course he did not.

Footballers are footballers, sportspeople are sportspeople. Only honours won on the field of play are honourable.

And Hakimi and his Moroccan team-mates lost on the field of play on that tumultuous, and often grimly farcical, night in Rabat. Having had their 1-0 extra-time win turned into a 3-0 defeat by the CAF Appeal Board, Senegal are now taking their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and it is hard to see how they will not be successful in their own appeal.

If the regulations that mean Senegal forfeit the game for having players walk off the pitch without permission exist, then they should have been applied at the time. By the referee or by CAF officials.

If the regulations are clear, they could have been enforced when the majority of Senegal players left the pitch. Instead, after the ten-minute delay, Morocco accepted the return of the opposition, took and missed the penalty that would have given them genuine victory and then eventually ‘lost’ the game in extra-time.

It was a night that shed little positive light on CAF, Hakimi himself not emerging with credit for his role in trying to deprive Edouard Mendy, the Senegal keeper, his use of a towel. Along with violence in the stadium, it made for a very controversial night, which was a shame because AFCON 2025 had been an excellent tournament.

It is a tournament in which the standard gets better edition-by-edition. And whatever you think of their walk-off – after Morocco had been awarded the late, controversial penalty – Senegal were the best team over the whole piece.

If you are prepared to allow them severe censure for their walk-off then they were worthy champions. Actually, change that.

They ARE worthy champions because that is how they will be seen by the football world, regardless of what happens in appeal rooms. A full game of football was played and they won it. Simple as that.

Whether they should have been allowed to carry on and play out that full game after their ‘protest’ is a matter that should have been dealt with at the time. There was time to do it.

There is obviously a chance that the appeal to CAS against the decision of the CAF Appeal Board will be successful. But it does not really matter. Anyone who watched that match knows who won it. And Hakimi knows who won it.

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