Senegal Win The Most Controversial AFCON Final To Date

Image Credit: @CAF_Online Twitter

January 18th, 2026 will forever be remembered as the night that Senegal defeated Morocco in one of the most controversial cup finals possibly ever. The game had 2 strong teams going back and forth against each other however this was not why this match will be remembered, what stood out about this final was the events going on in the game as well as the events that took place off the field. The match incredibly ended in just a 1-0 victory to Senegal after Extra Time and the team was crowned Africa Cup of Nations Champions for the second time in their history. The controversial events of the game included some off the field antics regarding towels, the suspicious officiating of the match itself and off course Senegal’s walkout protest.

Suspect Officiating

Throughout the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations tournament there were complaints by national teams and their representatives regarding the match officials and their seemingly biased decision making. Majority of the complaints came from the national teams that had played against the host nation Morocco where it seemed as though minor calls as well as major calls were made in Morocco’s favour. These allegations have been voiced since the group stage of the competition and continued through out the knockout stages all the way to the finals. In the Round of 16 Tanzia had a penalty shout that was ignored by the officials, in the Quarter Final stage Cameroon had 2 huge penalty shouts completely ignored by the officials and the VAR officials did not even call the match official to the pitch side monitor for reviews, and several more minor cases such as 50/50 foul situations or throw-ins calls mainly going in Morocco’s favour.

The AFCON final was no stranger to the previously mentioned minor cases as the match calls for situations where the ball had gone out of play; such throw-ins, goal kicks and corner kicks, saw match officials seemingly favour Morocco for majority of the calls which sparked frustration amongst the Senegalese players. In the late stages of the game that was still tied at 0-0 is where the real talking points occured, Senegal had seemingly scored the winner in the 92nd minute of the game through a corner kick set piece however the match official had blown the whistle before the ball found the back of the net as the match official deemed that Morocco’s captain Achraf Hakimi was fouled in the build up to the goal. The foul seemed soft and what made it even stranger was the match official blew his whistle before the phase of play had concluded, match officials are instructed to wait for the phase of play to end before they blow their whistle so that the VAR officials are legally allowed to review the goal for any infringements. The situation escalated even more a few minutes later when Brahim Diaz adamantly appealed that he was fouled during Morocco’s set piece corner and the match official waited for the VAR officials before running to the pitch side monitor to review the incident. There was already at this point a huge crowd of commotion surrounding the match official during the review that only got even worse after the match official came to the decision to award Morocco a penalty.

The Walkout

The match official’s decision did not sit well anyone associated with the Senegalese national team, including the spectators. For health and safety reasons all the players on the pitch were forced to come off following the outrage from Senegal fans who emerged out of the crowd and argued with pitch side security. This however did not stop the Senegal players, staff members and manager from continuing their arguments with the match officials and any associated Moroccan national team. The players were called back onto the pitch to continue the game however the Senegal manager, Pape Thiaw, had ordered his players to leave the pitch and return to the dressing rooms as a form of protest for the penalty decision as well as the disallowed goal. Senegal captain Sadio Mané was the only player who remained on the pitch as he was speaking to many officials and representatives to try and resolve the situation. After almost 20 minutes of delay, the Senegal players returned to the pitch and the game continued with Brahim Diaz, the Moroccan who appealed and won the penalty decision, was set to take the controversial penalty. Astonishingly the Real Madrid player chose to Paneka the penalty which resulted in an easy save for the Senegal goalkeeper Edouard Mendy and the game went into Extra Time. In the 94th minute of Extra Time, Villareal midfielder Pape Gueye, scored a screamer which ended up being the match winner for Senegal and crowned the nation Champions of Africa.

Towel Incidents

As the match officials and the walkouts were the major talking points that are still being addressed by FIFA and CAF, there were other notable issues that were brought up such the difficult traveling schedule for the other nations compared to the Moroccan National team among other issues however there are some other issues that has yet to addressed that were not televised. During some of Morocco’s game, also notably during the final, the ball boys whose job is to help with the collecting of and placing of the match balls on pitch side cones were seen on multiple videos trying to remove the Senegal goalkeeper’s towel for some unknown reason. As previously mentioned, this was not the first time an incident like this occurred, these actions took place during the Nigeria’s Semi-Final game against Morocco where officials were seen trying to remove the Nigerian goalkeeper Stanley Nwabili’s towel. The act in itself is quite odd and it is difficult to establish whether these actions were done as a form of unsportsmanlike conduct to distract the goalkeeper or to try and enforce some rule or regulation. The action was taken a step too far during the final as backup goalkeeper Yehvan Diouf was seen being harassed and tackled to the ground by the ball boys in an attempt to steal the Senegalese goalkeeper’s towel. It is being said that Senegal prepared for the towel removing act which is why the backup goalkeeper was tasked with standing guard of the towel behind the goals however that did not stop substituted Moroccan player Ismael Saibari from trying to prevent Diouf from handing the towel to goalkeeper Edouard Mendy which in later seem to insight the ball boys to get involved to try and remove the towel themselves. The whole situation is so strange and rather sums up the AFCON final and the overall tournament as whole, entertaining and yet so controversial.