Mehdi Benatia, the Moroccan former sporting director of Olympique de Marseille, has commented on the controversial crisis that followed the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final between Morocco and Senegal, which witnessed a series of developments that ended with the decision of the appeals committee of the Confederation of African Football to declare Morocco the winner of the title.
Benatia described the scene as chaotic. Even if Morocco’s title is officially confirmed, he stressed, it would not carry the same taste given the circumstances surrounding the match and the ongoing legal dispute over its result.
Speaking to the French channel “Canal+“, Benatia addressed the fallout from the final, held in January 2026 and won 1-0 by Senegal after extra time. In March, CAF’s appeals committee ruled that Senegal had withdrawn and handed the win to Morocco.
The former Moroccan official admitted he had no idea which body would ultimately settle the case. He called the situation genuine chaos, pointing to the complexity of the file and the wait for the Court of Arbitration for Sport to rule on the appeal lodged against the decision.
It all traces back to the final minutes of normal time, when the referee awarded a penalty to Morocco. The decision enraged the Senegal players and several of them walked off the pitch in protest, before returning to finish the match.
CAF later leaned on that incident to rule Senegal’s conduct a breach of the competition regulations. This paved the way for the appeals committee to change the result and award Morocco the title by default.
Africa Cup of Nations Qualification
Senegal, by contrast, insisted the title was theirs on the basis of the result achieved on the pitch. The crisis duly moved into the courts.
Benatia tore into the way the incident was handled during the match, holding the match delegate and the referees responsible for failing to take the appropriate decision at the time.
To his mind, the Senegal players’ return to the pitch and the completion of the match should have been taken into account. He questioned the point of turning the incident, after the final whistle, into a legal crisis that ended with the result being overturned.
Despite his 66 caps for Morocco, Benatia did not hide his regret at the way the possibility of his country winning the title has come to be discussed.
Claiming the tournament, he said, would not carry the same taste it would have had the competition been settled naturally on the pitch.
What had happened, he added, was very sad for Moroccan football, and he voiced his frustration at the recurrence of such crises in African competitions.
Friends of his who played on the continent had always spoken positively about Morocco, he pointed out, which makes the image now attached to the final all the more troubling for him.
On the pitch, the match served up high drama. Brahim Diaz missed the penalty awarded to Morocco in second-half stoppage time, after play had been halted for several minutes by the Senegal players’ protest and their walk-off.
Once play resumed, Senegal steadied themselves. Pape Gueye struck the only goal in extra time to settle the title in favour of the “Lions of Teranga” on the result by which the match ended.
Two months later, though, CAF’s appeals committee reopened the incident. Relying on the regulations governing the leaving of the pitch, it ruled Senegal had withdrawn and awarded Morocco the win by a default result.
African football now waits on the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Its ruling will settle the dispute between the Moroccan and Senegalese federations over the legitimacy of the appeals committee’s decision and the identity of the 2025 edition’s champion. The verdict is expected at the end of November, deciding the fate of the controversial title.
