{"id":841,"date":"2026-03-18T06:54:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T06:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/?p=841"},"modified":"2026-03-18T19:50:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:50:06","slug":"senegal-stripped-of-afcon-trophy-making-morocco-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/sports\/senegal-stripped-of-afcon-trophy-making-morocco-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"Senegal stripped of AFCON trophy making Morocco winners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">Morocco has been officially awarded the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title after CAF overturned the original final result in what can only be described as a highly controversial and unprecedented decision.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">The AFCON final which took place in Rabat on January 2026, originally ended with Senegal beating Morocco 1\u20130 after extra time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">Late in normal time, Morocco were given a controversial penalty via VAR in which Senegal\u2019s players walked off the pitch in protest, for around 14\u201317 minutes before eventually returning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">Morocco missed the penalty, and Senegal eventually went on to win the match.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">CAF\u2019s Appeal Board ruled that Senegal\u2019s walk-off violated competition rules which specify against leaving the field without permission.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">As a result, the match was deemed a forfeit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">The official result was changed to a 3\u20130 win for Morocco, who were then declared champions. Morocco are now recognised as AFCON winners, their first title since 1976.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">Senegal have been stripped of the trophy, despite winning on the pitch, a decision which has sparked major backlash and debate across football.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">Senegal\u2019s football federation has called the ruling unjust and plans to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">Sanctions, fines, and suspensions have also been issued to players and staff involved in the incident.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">This is extremely rare in football, a major final being overturned after it was played and celebrated. It raises big questions about h<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">ow strictly rules should be enforced vs. match context, VAR\u2019s influence on high-stakes games and whether governing bodies should change results after the fact.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Morocco has been officially awarded the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title after CAF overturned the original final<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":842,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,19,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-sports","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846,"href":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions\/846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funsahara.co.uk\/activity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}