History was rewritten Tuesday night as Senegal were stripped of the Africa Cup of Nations that they — and most of the world — thought they had won in January. Fifty-eight days later, the title of African champion is going to Morocco, thanks to a ruling by the appeal body of the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
You might remember the drama of that final. A few big calls, including a disallowed goal, went against Senegal. Then the tournament hosts Morocco were awarded a highly contentious penalty, via the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), deep in injury time. The Senegal players protested and, almost to a man, walked off the pitch and down the tunnel, led by their coach, Pape Thiaw. Those same players returned some 10 minutes later, grudgingly reentering the pitch.
Play resumed a full 17 minutes after it was halted, with Morocco’s Brahim DÃaz taking an ill-advised “Panenka-style” penalty kick that was easily saved by Senegal keeper Édouard Mendy, forcing the game into extra time. And in the first overtime period, Pape Gueye scored the goal that gave Senegal a 1-0 win amid a backdrop of fan unrest, chaos, players squabbling with ball boys, and bad blood all around.
All that is gone now and, from a strict reading of both the tournament regulations and the Laws of the Game, it’s the correct decision. Justice was done. Justice delayed, mind you, because it never should have taken this long, but justice nonetheless.
Article 82 of the CAF regulations is crystal clear: “If, for any reason whatsoever, a team … leave the ground before the regular end of the match without the authorisation of the referee, it shall be considered looser [sic] and shall be eliminated for good from the current competition.” Article 84 goes on to state that if you contravene Article 82 you “will lose [the] match by three-nil.”
That’s it. That’s all you really need to know. You can’t abandon the field of play without permission during a game and, if you do, you forfeit. It’s pretty basic, universal and common sense: You refuse to play, you lose. Refereeing misdeeds, hostile crowds, frustration, whatever … none of these justify walking off.
The question to ask isn’t whether CAF’s appeals body got it right. It did; the regulations really leave no room for argument. Rather, it’s how things got this far and took this long.
The referee himself, Jean-Jacques Ndala Ngambo, could have ruled the game a forfeit on the night. If players leave the field of play without his permission, he is supposed to issue yellow cards, and if they don’t return within a “reasonable amount of time,” he has the power to abandon the match and call it for the other team. What’s a “reasonable amount of time”? It’s not specified; however, common sense would suggest that a “reasonable amount of time” is considerably less than what we saw on that night.
Why didn’t the referee do this? We don’t know. He had made some bad calls earlier in the game, and maybe he felt he had some discretion not to end the showcase event of African football in this way. In that sense, in those moments, he looked like the loneliest man on Earth.
What should have happened (and apparently did not, though we may never know) is someone — CAF’s head of referees, a CAF official, someone — getting in his ear and reminding him that this was his call to make and empowering him to simply apply the rules. If that didn’t happen, I sure as heck am not going to blame him for doing everything in his power to finish the game.
But that doesn’t exonerate CAF for what happened next.
The following day, Jan. 19, Morocco filed their appeal with the CAF disciplinary board, asking for a Senegal forfeit. Nine days later, they came out with their decision, suspending a bunch of players and officials, issuing heavy fines to both teams and players (including a five-match ban for Senegal boss Thiaw) but, crucially, rejecting the Moroccan appeal for a forfeit.
Why? We may never know, but the impression is that with so much chaos surrounding the match and with allegations of favoritism toward the host nation, Morocco, along with bad publicity worldwide, they — a bit like the referee on the night — didn’t feel empowered to simply apply their own rules.
A week later, on Feb. 3, Morocco officially filed their paperwork with the CAF appeals board. It took it six weeks to reach a decision: Senegal forfeit the game, Morocco are champions, though they may want to hold off on the celebrations.
Senegal have already exercised their right to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). You’d expect them to do just that, perhaps arguing that since the referee chose not to abandon the match after the walk-off and the players eventually returned, Article 82 does not apply and that, ultimately, a 17-minute delay of game — from the moment the penalty was awarded to when it was actually taken — doesn’t warrant the stripping of a title. And that will likely kick the can down the road another two to three months.
Whatever the outcome, it will be binary. There is no possible CAS verdict that will satisfy both sides or that will be seen as “just” by all. (In the eyes of one CAS arbitrator, Raymond Hack, this appeal will end in Senegal’s favor.)
So, for now, the main takeaways for CAF.
The first is that disciplinary processes should not take this long. This really isn’t that complicated — there aren’t reams evidence to sift through. You either feel that Senegal’s walk-off warranted a forfeit (like me) or you don’t, because they ultimately returned and the referee didn’t abandon the game.
The other is that refereeing in those circumstances is difficult and, above all, lonely. Leaving the match official on his own to take a decision like this is something that ought never to happen again.
