Brahim Diaz’s Missed Penalty Still Haunts AFCON Nine Months Before CAS Decides the Final

• The Court of Arbitration for Sport heard Senegal’s appeal on Thursday against a ruling that stripped them of the AFCON title they believed they had won on the pitch in January.
• Senegal beat hosts Morocco 1-0 in extra time, but an African football disciplinary panel later overturned that result and awarded Morocco a 3-0 forfeit win after Senegal’s players walked off the pitch before the final whistle.
• CAS has already said a verdict will not arrive on the day of the hearing, and its own rules allow a panel up to four months to reach a final decision.

A Final With Two Winners and No Winner, Nine Months On

Sadio Mane lifted the Africa Cup of Nations trophy in January and was named the tournament’s best player. Pape Gueye scored what looked like the winning goal in extra time. Senegal’s players celebrated a second continental title in Rabat, in front of 66,000 home fans who had turned out to watch Morocco chase a first AFCON crown that has eluded them for half a century.

None of that settled anything. A final whose last kick was struck back in January still has no confirmed winner, and the people who will decide it are lawyers in Switzerland rather than anyone who kicked a ball that night.

What Actually Happened in Rabat

With the match goalless deep into stoppage time, Senegal thought they had broken the deadlock when Ismaila Sarr put the ball in the net. Referee Jean Jacques Ndala had already blown his whistle for a Moroccan free-kick, and the goal did not stand.

In the 98th minute, a VAR review led Ndala to award Morocco a penalty. Tempers broke down on the touchline and in the stands. Senegal coach Pape Thiaw led some of his players and staff down the tunnel, and supporters clashed with security as order briefly collapsed.

Play eventually resumed. In the 124th minute, Real Madrid forward Brahim Diaz had the chance to end Morocco’s 50-year wait for the trophy from the penalty spot. He chipped it, Panenka style, straight into the arms of goalkeeper Edouard Mendy. Gueye’s extra-time strike then won it 1-0 for Senegal, who lifted the trophy for a second time.

Why the Result Got Overturned

The Royal Moroccan Football Federation complained to the Confederation of African Football almost immediately, pointing to Article 82 of the competition rules, contained in a chapter titled “Withdrawals.” It states that if a team “leaves the ground before the regular end of the match without the authorisation of the referee,” that team “shall be considered the loser and shall be eliminated from the current competition.”

In March, a Caf appeals board agreed, ruling that Senegal had forfeited the match and handing Morocco a 3-0 win instead. Senegal’s federation called the decision “unfair, unprecedented and unacceptable” and took the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, football’s final legal authority.

Not everyone in African football agreed with Caf’s own panel. One former senior Caf official argued that only the match referee has the authority to abandon a game over a walk-off, not an appeals board working from video and written submissions months later.

Who Actually Decides Now

Cas was founded in 1984 and is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It handles more than 900 cases a year from over 50 sports, covering everything from doping and transfers to the organisation of events, and its rulings are treated as final by the governing bodies that recognise its authority.

A panel of three arbitrators with backgrounds in sports law heard the Senegal appeal, led by 76-year-old Frenchman Gerald Simon, founder of the Sports Law Laboratory at the University of Burgundy and a Cas member for 23 years. The hearing itself took place behind closed doors, at the request of both football federations involved.

Cas has already lowered expectations of a quick answer. In a statement, the court said it “cannot state when a final decision will be rendered but it will not be on the day of the hearing.” Its own code allows panels up to four months after a hearing to deliver an appeal verdict, though guidelines suggest arbitrators should aim for under three months.

It has moved faster before. In 2020, Manchester City appealed to Cas over a UEFA ban from European competition for breaching financial fair play rules. That hearing took place on 8 June, and the verdict, which went in City’s favour, landed just over a month later on 13 July.

What Happens if Senegal Win This One Too

Caf president Patrice Motsepe said in March that his organisation will “adhere to” and “respect” whatever Cas decides. A reversal would be an awkward outcome for Caf’s own appeals board, whose ruling in Morocco’s favour has already drawn heavy criticism from some in African football.

The walk-off has already reshaped the laws of the sport regardless of what Cas rules. The game’s lawmaking body, Ifab, confirmed in April that “the referee may sanction with a red card any player who leaves the field of play in protest at a referee’s decision,” a rule that also covers any official who incites players to leave, and which states that a team causing a match to be abandoned will, in principle, forfeit it.

Both coaches from that night are already out of a job. Thiaw was dismissed by Senegal after their last-32 exit at the World Cup, and Walid Regragui, who was in the Morocco dugout in January, was sacked in March. Off the pitch, the row has hardened into something close to a diplomatic dispute. Morocco’s federation believes the images of the chaos damaged the reputation of the first AFCON it had hosted in nearly four decades, a tournament the country had invested heavily in staging. Senegal’s federation and government have leaned into a wider feeling among some African football figures that Morocco holds too much sway within the confederation. There were other flashpoints too: laser pens directed into players’ eyes, and ball boys moving goalkeeper Mendy’s towel as the Moroccan penalty was taken, an incident that led to reserve keeper Yehvann Diouf being tackled to the ground by three ball boys when he tried to intervene.

Some Senegal supporters were convicted of hooliganism offences over the clashes in the stands, before eventually returning home after a royal pardon.

With the next AFCON scheduled for next summer, a rematch between the continent’s two best teams is a real possibility. On that, at least, almost everyone connected to the row agrees on one thing: whatever happens next should be settled by a referee’s whistle, not a hearing room in Lausanne.