Chaotic AFCON final an embarrassment to soccer

Morocco have never made any secret of their desire to write history at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, although never in their wildest dreams could they – or any of us, quite frankly – imagine how the continental showpiece would conclude, amidst acrimony, animosity, accusation, as two footballing brothers almost provoked a diplomatic incident in Rabat.

Of course, the hosts’ ambitions are all in tatters.

There has been no end to their 50-year wait to return to the pinnacle of the African game. There’s been no fairytale title triumph on home soil. There’s no crowning glory for FA President Faouzi Lekjaa, adored by his own people, summoned by the King, flanked by Gianni Infantino and Dr Patrice Motsepe, as this 15-year vision came to its realisation on January 18, 2026.

That alternative reality will never happen.

What we were left with was a chaotic, compelling, confused conclusion to this fascinating month of football, and 20 minutes of second-half stoppage time that will be discussed, analysed, pored over and speculated upon for years to come.

Let’s get the grand lines over with first; Senegal won the title, their second in the last three tournaments, their second ever, with Pape Gueye scoring a thunderous winner in extra time as Morocco missed a last-minute penalty to miss the chance to win it in 90 minutes… or, at least, the 20th minute of second-half stoppage time.

But such were the stormy storylines of this one, that the result and the title are almost subplots themselves against two penalty decisions that almost forced a first ever abandonment of a major international final… an argument could certainly be made that an abandonment would have been the correct decision.

First, Senegal scored what appeared to be the winner in the third minute of the originally allocated eight minutes of stoppage time, an extended period due to a facial injury sustained by Neil El Aynaoui which required extensive treatment.

Ismaïla Sarr, stooping, headed home after Abdoulaye Seck‘s header had rebounded off the bar beyond Yassine Bounou.

Senegal tore off in celebration, this was – after all – the first goal they’d scored in any AFCON final, having previously failed to net in 2002, 2019 or 2021. However, they were quickly pulled back after realising that referee Jean-Jacques Ndala had blown his whistle in the build-up due to a perceived push by Seck on Achraf Hakimi, as he made space for himself to take the initial header.

The defender certainly did appear to have his hands on Hakimi, while the Paris Saint-Germain man was playing his part in the tussle as well, but the nature of his extended, staggered fall to the turf suggested the foul wasn’t as clear cut as Ndala had initially thought.

The referee opted not to consult VAR to double check, despite insistent Senegalese suggestions that he should do exactly that, instead waving play on and allowing the flow of the game to continue.

It promptly went up the other end, where a Morocco corner led to Brahim Díaz – the tournament’s outstanding player – falling under pressure from El Hadji Malick Diouf, an incident that appeared not to initially spark the interest of Ndala.

However, Diaz was incensed, not letting Diouf’s intervention lie, and proceeded to harangue the linesmen, get up in the referee’s face, implore the 66,000-strong at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium to join his cause, the big screen relaying his emotional pleas, VAR gesturing and angry responses to the officials’ hesitation, with the sense of injustice in the stadium intensifying as fans sniffed an opportunity for an innocuous incident to secure them a title victory at the death.

Eventually, Ndala relented, by which point, it appeared as though half of Morocco’s bench were already pouring onto the pitch insisting he examine the monitor. Receiving word through his earpiece that there was something to reassess, he strode over to the pitch side screen, with both sets of technical staff and substitutes crowding round the referee as he relayed the incident.

When he signalled for the spotkick, it was West Side Story all over again, with both sets of players and staff – who had been celebrating the fraternity between these two brother countries ahead of the final – squaring up to each other and getting increasingly physical as they debated the fairness of the decision to turn to VAR to validate one pro-Morocco incident, having ignored the chance to turn to VAR to validate a pro-Senegal incident moments earlier.

The burning sense of injustice spilled into the small portion of Senegal fans, an island of yellow and green in an ocean of red, and the country’s famous Gaindé supporter group, known for their pacifism, their inclusivity, their stadium-cleaning habits and relentless dancing, appeared determined to take matters into their own hands.

Some appeared hellbent on entering the field of play to accost the officials and defend their playing staff from Morocco’s physical affronts, others confronted the stadium stewards, some attempted to jump over the barriers, launching themselves as police and officials, as Moroccan authorities increasingly swelled into this corner of the stadium in order to neutralise any intended spill-over onto the pitch.

Some supporters, painted all in yellow, were hauled away by officials, while others threw projectiles which rained down on the stadium stewards, one of whom had to be stretchered away with an injury to his upper body.

Some of the fans jumped onto the electronic advertisement boards and appeared determined to dislodge them from their stanchions, trampling all over the 1XBET electronic display until the boardings fell flat, extinguished.

Steadily, in this corner of the stadium, the sheer volume of riot police and assorted officials Morocco sent to quell the Senegalese storm eventually – albeit belatedly – got things under control, although on the pitch, things were taking a very different turn.

Seemingly under instruction from enraged head coach Pape Thiaw, Senegal’s players started departing down the tunnel, leaving only Sadio Mané as peace-maker elect to try to salvage any semblance of a final.

Thaw’s motivations weren’t clear, with a combination of the ongoing security risk and a protest against the refereeing decisions being the chief theories behind his decision.

«What we felt was injustice,» match winner Pape Gueye told ESPN. «There had been a foul against us before and the ref chose not to look at VAR, we were frustrated, as you said.»

For several minutes, the fate of the match hung in the balance; would Senegal forfeit, only moments before the end, of a major continental final? Would Morocco’s 50-year wait be ended in this fashion, in these circumstances? Was the ongoing security situation a legitimate reason for Thiaw to remove his players?

Eventually, after consultation with former Senegal head coach Claude Le Roy among others, Mane agreed to beckon his players back onto the pitch, although by this point, simmering tensions between the players were again bubbling into physical altercations, with Seck and Ismael Saibari squaring up to one another.

«Sadio told us to come back on the pitch, to remobilise us,» Gueye revealed, and in a week where the future of the Nobel Peace Prize continues to be discussed, the Senegal legend’s example of measured leadership and admirable calm in the face of such circumstances, on a stage such as this, certainly deserve commendation.

It was almost surreal, as Diaz, who had had to wait for over ten minutes to take the spotkick that he had fought so passionately to receive, eventually stepped up to take it while riot police still quelled Senegalese attempts to enter the field of play on the other side of the stadium.

Should play really be allowed to continue in such circumstances?

The change in Diaz’s mood was notable. He cut an almost forlorn, resigned, isolated figure as he prepared to take the kick, placing the ball on the spot that Édouard Mendy had been booked for attempting to scuff and spoil.

And then he missed.

But this wasn’t just a missed penalty. This was the mother of all missed penalties, as the Real Madrid forward stepped up, advancing intensely, before slowing his run, and somehow kicking a half-hearted panenka into the waiting arms of Mendy.

Immediately, there were suggestions that he had deliberately fluffed the spotkick, preferring to fail as a hero than win as a villain, but it’s a hard theory to stand up given how determined he had been in appealing for the foul, his kiss to the ball as he approached to take, and his decision to panenka his finish rather than kick it wide.

If Diaz did undergo a sudden change of heart, deciding that given the injustices of the previous 10 minutes, it wasn’t worth winning this way, the swing in his energy was transformative.

The complete lack of Senegal celebration at Mendy’s save, eerie in its acceptance, and Diaz’s immediate turn around and trot back to the centre-circle after failing suggested a gentleman’s agreement. Where were the reactions and responses one would expect from the stress and the tension, the anxiety of such a situation? Why did not one single player go and thank or congratulate Mendy…he’s just kept your AFCON dream alive?!

The other suggestion is damning for Diaz; that, in this moment, with 50 years of hurt at his twinkling toes, he opted to try to chip Mendy – no stranger to high-pressure panenkas – rather than just hold his nerve and lash the ball home…or let Youssef En-Nesyri take it – and humiliated himself in the process, denying Morocco their moment of glory as a nation held its breath.

Perhaps he just lost his head as his composure collapsed, given the delay, given the pressure, and his nerve deserted him when he needed it most.

Perhaps we’ll never know if Diaz sacrificed himself on the altar of fair play, or whether he’s guilty of the most calamitous final failure that the sport has ever seen, but it was a moment that was as baffling as it was breathtaking, as bizarre as it was bewildering.

Ultimately, it may be for the best that the match was won with Gueye’s extra-time thunderbolt rather than Diaz’s stoppage-time penalty, which could have hung in history as a tarnished result, and damaged…perhaps irretrievably…Morocco-Senegalese relations.

Thiaw appears set to rival Diaz as the villain of the piece, particularly if it’s proven that he removed his players in protest at the referee’s decision.

«A lot of time passed before [Brahim] was able to take the penalty, and this put him off,» Morocco head coach Walid Regragui told ESPN. «The match we had was shameful for Africa.»

«What Pape [Thiaw] did tonight doesn’t honour Africa. He’s an African champion now, so he can say what he wants, but they stopped the match for over ten minutes,» he added. «That doesn’t excuse Brahim for the way he hit [the penalty], he hit it like that and we have to own it. We need to look forward now, and accept that Brahim missed it.»

It’s important that Thiaw’s decision isn’t just seen in the context of those two incidents; it was a response to the perception that’s build up throughout the tournament that Morocco are not above stacking the deck in their favour in an almost desperate attempt to win the AFCON.

From Hugo Broos’s complaints about South Africa’s training facilities to Tom Saintfiet’s objections to the refereeing decisions not being equal as Mali held the hosts in the group stage, from Akor Adams‘ insistence that journalists interview the referee after Nigeria’s semifinal elimination by the Atlas Lions to the ball boys’ constant removing of Stanley Nwabali‘s towel during Wednesday’s game, this is a narrative that has developed and taken root during the tournament, with shades of Argentina’s manipulation of the 1978 World Cup not too far from mind.

Senegal have experienced this as well, but they came prepared.

On Friday evening, the Federation released a press release deploring four aspects of the treatment they’ve received in the build-up to the final – accommodation, logistics, training facilities and ticketing – putting pressure on the Confederation of African Football to affirm the organisers’ impartiality.

They were prepared for the towel-stealing antics as well during the final, with Mendy’s goalkeeping deputy at one point having to physically wrest the stopper’s towel away from no fewer than four Moroccan pitch-side adolescents, supposedly there to assist in the fair running of proceedings, not interfere to disrupt one of the finalists.

Even Hakimi contributed to this towel-stealing fiasco at one point in the contest, such was Moroccan desperation to give themselves every advantage they could, beyond their considerable technical and tactical qualities.

This is not to excuse Thiaw’s actions, but merely to provide context and explain the extent to which his actions were not an isolated response to those two refereeing decisions, but a broader protest – supposedly – against Morocco’s overall attempts to stack the deck in their favour.

«When a head coach asks his players to leave the pitch, when he’s saying things that already started in the press conference [before the match, when Senegal accused Morocco of unsporting tactics]…he needs to stay class, in victory as well as in defeat,» Regragui added, pointing the finger at Thiaw for instigating the scenes of farce that accompanied the extended stoppage time.

It’s not clear whether Senegal will be sanctioned for threatening to abandon the match, whether they would behave in such a way at the World Cup, in their match against France perhaps, or whether their behaviour will spark a precedent for teams simply threatening abandonment if they aren’t happy with a marginal VAR call or even the referee’s decision to consult VAR or not.

As with Diaz, how will history remember them? Will they be remembered for standing up for injustice on the grandest stage, for their backbone, and for potentially throwing away their AFCON participation? As revolutionaries against VAR? Will they be remembered for petulance and poor sportsmanship, and for winning the Nations Cup despite having abandoned the contest midway through? For delaying the restart to disrupt Diaz to the point of a meltdown, and then returning to reap the rewards?

And what of the AFCON itself? This is a tournament undergoing an identity crisis, a repetitional crisis, an existential crisis – largely accelerated by its own patrons – and its global reputation (entertainment notwithstanding) is unlikely to be enhanced by a night that will live in infamy.