Senegal football team
Senegal football team (Marco Iacobucci Epp / Shutterstock.com)

Senegal Sensationally Stripped of AFCON Title… Two Months After the Final

General / March 27, 2026

The Confederation of African Football (Caf) has set an extraordinary precedent by stripping the champions of its flagship tournament of their title… two months after the final took place. Officials for Caf have declared that Senegal’s decision to walk off the pitch in the middle of their final against Morocco has been viewed as them forfeiting the game.

The Lions had collectively left the field after a host of big decisions, including a disallowed goal and a controversial injury time penalty, went against them. They would go on to win the final and lift the cup… however, that has now been declared null and void by Caf, who will from hereon recognise Morocco as the champions of one of the most notorious international football tournaments in decades.

Why Did Senegal Walk Off the Pitch?


The final of AFCON 2026 was a tight and testy affair, with neither team able to find the breakthrough. Not for the want of trying, of course, with Senegal believing they wrongly had a goal ruled out by officials in normal time. Still smarting from that incident, the Lions became apoplectic when a VAR review determined that Malick Diouf had fouled Brahim Diaz in the penalty area in the 98th minute of the contest.

Incensed, Senegal head coach, Pape Thiaw, demanded that his players leave the field – before disappearing in the direction of the dressing room. They reappeared around ten minutes later, with former Liverpool forward Sadio Mane seemingly instrumental in getting his teammates back on the field. Some 17 minutes after it was originally given, Diaz then finally stepped up to take the fateful penalty – but his ‘Panenka’ attempt was gleefully saved by Senegal goalkeeper, Edouard Mendy, who barely had to move a muscle.

The rest of the game then played out as normal. It finished 0-0 at the end of a chaotic 90 minutes (plus lots of injury time), so a period of extra time was needed. Here, Senegal’s Papa Gueye would find the winning goal in a similarly madcap half an hour in which fans began fighting on the terraces and a handful of Moroccan ball boys almost came to blows with the Senegalese back-up goalkeeper, Yehvann Diouf.

But, when the dust finally settled, Senegal were crowned AFCON champions for 2026… despite Morocco later revealing that they would be appealing the result of the game. That would be in vain though… right?

Why Did Caf Award AFCON 2026 to Morocco?

Well, no, as it turns out. After a lengthy period of consultation following Morocco’s appeal, Caf officials agreed that they had a fair case. And the decision was enshrined in their regulations, with article 82 of the Caf rulebook reading:

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 the loser and shall be eliminated for good from the current competition.

“It is declared that the Fédération Sénégalaise de Football, through the conduct of its team, infringed article 82 of the regulations of the Africa Cup of Nations,” a Caf spokesperson confirmed two months and two days after the final was played. If you are browsing the history books and wondering why Morocco have been declared 3-0 victors of the final of AFCON 2026, that’s due to Caf’s article 84: any team that contravenes Article 82 will be considered to “lose the match by three-nil”.

At the time of writing, Senegal’s football federation had just declared their intention to appeal Caf’s designed to CAS – the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Former CAS arbitrator Raymond Hack has spoken publicly of his belief that Senegal would be successful… citing Morocco’s failure to lodge a protest prior to the end of the final.

“The referee is the final decision on the game and when he blows the whistle for the end of the game, that’s when the game ends,” he commented. The Senegalese government has even got involved, accusing Caf of ‘suspected corruption’ and calling for an international investigation. There could yet be more twists and turns to a tale that has not exactly shone African football in the greatest of lights…

Have Any Other Tournament Winners Been Stripped of Their Title?

CAF logoAlthough somewhat different in context, there are similar scenarios that can be used as precedent. Caf were at the centre of a storm in 2019 when their club Champions League final between Espérance de Tunis and Wydad AC ended in disarray. The first leg was a 1-1 draw, before the action headed to Tunisia for the second game.

There, a farcical situation unfolded in which a technical glitch impacted the use of VAR, which couldn’t check a disallowed Wydad goal. The Moroccans walked off and refused to play on, with Caf later ruling that the second leg must be replayed in a neutral venue.

But then CAS got involved, claiming that Caf’s original verdict was unlawful – they instead handed the game to Espérance de Tunis, who were leading 1-0 at the time of the VAR error, and they were crowned Champions League winners. In 1992/93, Marseille were stripped of the Ligue 1 title after they became embroiled in a bribery scandal. An investigation revealed that two Valenciennes players were paid to deliberately underperform in a game against Marseille.

And you may recall the bribery scandal that engulfed Italian football, with Juventus stripped of two Serie A titles and administratively relegated after it was held that they had tried to manipulate which referees were appointed to their fixtures. The 2005/06 title was awarded to Inter Milan instead.

Incredibly, the first instance of a walk off in a major game came as long as 1920, with Czechoslovakia refusing to play on in the gold medal match of the Antwerp Olympics in protest at decisions awarded in favour of their opponents, the host nation Belgium. The Belgians were awarded the gold medal, with the Czechs barred from claiming their silver medals by the IOC.