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By Jason Fray
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In something seemingly out of a movie, the Confederation of African Football has taken away the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title from winner Senegal — and instead have awarded the honor to runner-up Morocco. The announcement was made Tuesday morning.
Senegal and Morocco went toe-to-toe in last year's final. This tournament is the crown jewel of soccer being played in the continent. The beautiful mixtures of cultures, languages, religious differences, and everything in-between is seen each and every time this event takes place.
There's real pride emanating from these nations when competing to be the best in all of Africa — perhaps even more visible than in a World Cup setting.
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In this specific situation, there was an incident in the match where Morocco was awarded a penalty. The game happened to be 0-0 at the time, and coincidentally, it was played in the Moroccan city of Rabat. The penalty was deemed highly questionable by the Senegalese team. So much, in fact, that a large portion of the team walked off the field in protest for several minutes.
Fans of both teams were participating in skirmishes throughout the stadium. The atmosphere was hectic, to say the least. Senegal ended up scoring in extra time to win the game 1-0.
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However, two months later, the title was taken away from Senegal. The appeal board reportedly decided to change the result in favor of Morocco based on members of Senegal's team leaving the field of play. Ultimately, the ruling was deemed a forfeit by Senegal.
To retroactively change the result of a championship match in this manner seems to be utterly extreme on the surface. In response, Senegal plans on filing an appeal of its own.
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