{"id":53094,"date":"2026-03-18T12:23:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T12:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/?p=53094"},"modified":"2026-03-18T12:23:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T12:23:33","slug":"cwygyq495j8oat_mediumrssat_campaignrss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/2026\/03\/18\/cwygyq495j8oat_mediumrssat_campaignrss\/","title":{"rendered":"Afcon 2025: Senegal say &#8216;fight is far from over&#8217; after Morocco awarded title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In its ruling to award Morocco the title, Caf also &#8220;partially upheld&#8221; an appeal against an incident involving ball boys in the final, and reduced the Moroccan FA&#8217;s fine for the incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In torrential rain, Senegal goalkeeper Edouard Mendy regularly dried his gloves, but the ball boys repeatedly tried to discard his towel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At one point Senegal reserve goalkeeper Yehvann Diouf was tackled to the ground by three ball boys and dragged around on the floor when he tried to intervene.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A fine for fans shining lasers at players on the pitch was also reduced by Caf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Caf&#8217;s former head of disciplinary, Raymond Hack, questioned the decisions made by African football&#8217;s governing body and suggested there is a perception of &#8220;political interference&#8221; as &#8220;the president of the Moroccan Football Association [Fouzi Lekjaa] is the first vice-president of Caf&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The circus continues,&#8221; Hack told BBC World Service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;A lot will depend on the referee&#8217;s written report, but the fact that the referee allowed the game to continue and they went into extra time gives the impression that he was satisfied that the game will continue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He is the only person who can call an end to the game. Not the authorities, not the governing bodies, only the referee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Otherwise you&#8217;re going to have situation worldwide where every time someone disagrees with a decision, they&#8217;re going to go on appeal or take it to court or something ridiculous like that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The game should be won on the field of play not in a boardroom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hack, a lawyer and a member of Fifa&#8217;s disciplinary committee, said the Morocco players should have informed the referee they were playing under protest if they intended to challenge the result.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He also said it could take six months for Cas to rule on Senegal&#8217;s appeal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Moroccan journalist Jalal Bounar told Newsday that Caf&#8217;s decision had been welcomed &#8220;with great excitement and joy across the country&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Morocco appealed the decision to the confederation of African football because they believed that Senegal had broken the rules during the match, and that&#8217;s why Moroccans went out to celebrate,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;If they give it to Senegal, it won&#8217;t be the end of the world. We will accept because we are satisfied that we reached the final.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, north African journalist Maher Mezahi said such a sentiment is not matched across the continent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It does seem like the rest of Africa feels outraged by this because it seems like, once again, the Confederation of African Football has almost disgraced the sport,&#8221; he told BBC Radio 5 Live.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mezahi cited Caf&#8217;s decision to ban Togo from two Africa Cup of Nations for quitting the 2010 competition following a gun attack on their team bus in Angola two days before the tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Referring back to Caf&#8217;s decision on the 2025 final, he said: &#8220;They have, unfortunately, come up with a habit of releasing decisions like this &#8211; whether it&#8217;s the disciplinary committee or the appeals board &#8211; that eventually do get shot down at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but it makes the entire thing look very amateurish.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n#Afcon #Senegal #fight #Morocco #awarded #title<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In its ruling to award Morocco the title, Caf also &#8220;partially upheld&#8221; an appeal against an incident involving ball boys&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mzansi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53096,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53094\/revisions\/53096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}