In more than three decades of reporting on African football, I have gone through the entire gamut of emotions: exhilaration – over some of the continent’s great moments at the Africa Cups of Nations and World Cups; frustration – over the errors its governors make – and deep despair, as one wonders whether its custodians will ever live up to their responsibilities and do their jobs diligently.
The decision on Tuesday, by the appeals committee of the Confederation of African Football (Caf), to strip Senegal of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) title and hand it to Morocco, leaves me gobsmacked, as it did a former member of the appeals committee. “As a person who was on the appeals board for six years I know that it does not have the power to change the on-field decision of a referee. I cannot understand how they came to this disgraceful decision,” he said.
It has also left members of the Caf executive committee furious, knowing that point 5.2 of the laws of the game makes it clear “that the decisions of a referee regarding facts connected with play, including whether or not a goal is scored and the result of the match, are final”.
“It’s a big joke,” Samir Sobha, the Caf exco member from Mauritius, said on Wednesday. “We cannot correct a mistake by making another mistake … Correcting one injustice with another cannot be considered an acceptable response, either from a sporting or an ethical standpoint.”
It is not the first time that Caf has made a ridiculous decision.
In May 2019, during the second leg of the Champions League final between Espérance of Tunis and Wydad Casablanca, the Gambian referee Papa Bakary Gassama declared Espérance the winners after Wydad’s players had walked off the field following the official’s decision to disallow Walid El Karti’s second-half goal.
With play stopped for more than an hour and the Moroccan side refusing to resume Gassama ended the game and awarded the Tunisian team a 3-0 victory, leading to the Champions League final being abandoned for the only time in its history.
Despite the fact that Gassama’s verdict was in accordance with the Champions League tournament rules and the laws of the game, Caf’s executive committee met in Paris that June and overturned Gassama’s ruling, ordering a replay of the abandoned second leg.
It took a slapdown from the court of arbitration for sport (Cas) for Caf to finally respect the referee’s verdict and subsequent judicial processes, confirming Espérance as the winners.
Remarkably, nine years on, Caf has returned to a self-imposed governance quagmire, as the appeals body, led by Roli Harriman, a Nigerian high court justice, issued a ruling that makes a mockery of the laws of the game, one that Cas is certain to reverse, in order to protect football’s hallowed rule – that the decision of a referee, whether good or bad, is final (excluding the video assistant referee).
There is no doubt that Jean-Jacques Ndala Ngambo had a nightmare during the Afcon final. In fact, his officiating was atrocious: denying Senegal a penalty they deserved and failing to declare the game abandoned, in favour of Morocco, when the west Africans walked off for more than a quarter of an hour, in protest against a penalty awarded against them. But once Ngambo took the decision to resume play, the result could only be determined on the field of play and not in the court of football justice.
How this matter ends will undoubtedly be a defining moment for the five-year presidency of Patrice Motsepe. Judging from the mood within the African football community, yet to recover from the unacceptable and inexplicable postponement of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, which he promised would take place in Morocco on time, the South African billionaire is on an extremely sticky credibility and legacy wicket.
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