Rabat – Despite the hospitality, unity, and genuine spirit that every Moroccan – from the south to the north – showed to fans and players from all across Africa and beyond, especially to Senegal, the AFCON 2025 final turned into one of the darkest chapters in the history of African football.
A loss, however heartbreaking, is never the end of the world. The Atlas Lions’ reputation and legacy remain intact, regardless of conspiratorial attempts to downplay Morocco’s quality on and off the pitch during what CAF and many seasoned observers of African football have described as arguably the “best AFCON ever” in terms of organizational excellence.
Ultimately, the night of January 18, which Moroccans will now remember as the night of an inexcusable disgrace from the national team of a country they have loved, cherished, embraced, and supported for decades, ended without a trophy, but not without pride. It’s the feeling and energy the Atlas Lions’ supporters carried in their journey from Qatar 2022 to this year’s AFCON, and it will not subside.
Morocco reached the final with quality and maturity, and this devastating loss in the most chaotic and reprehensible of AFCON dramas can serve as a foundation for the next editions. The focus now shifts to 2027 in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Morocco will arrive with more hunger and maturity, strengthened by the lessons of Rabat.
The North African country’s journey throughout AFCON 2025 was a demonstration of excellence and resilience. Through the whole saga, the Atlas Lions consistently displayed a blend of talent and strategic intelligence.
For many, except those who had been waiting in the corner for Morocco’s “failure,” an illusion they created in their minds, the tournament was a resounding success. The world watched, recognized, and applauded the quality of stadiums and the spotlessness of all attendant logistics and facilities Morocco deployed for a continental tournament it had obviously desired and prepared to win.
Before their eliminations from the tournament made them bad losers who could not elegantly accept that devastating defeats are an integral part of football, many participating teams and coaches were full of praise for Morocco’s AFCON. This praise was prominent in comments from players and coaches, before the sour adrenaline of defeat ultimately spoiled the illusion of African brotherhood and pan-African solidarity many of us in Morocco – and many other parts of the continent – have clung to over the past years. Yet, it was precisely because the tournament had set such a high standard that what followed in the final felt so jarring.
A genuine protest or choreographed collapse?
With a VAR-verified penalty already rightly awarded to Morocco in the dying seconds of a pulsating final between Africa’s top two teams in the FIFA rankings, Senegal’s moral compass for decision-making lost its true north. Footage showed the head coach urging his players to leave the pitch in what many observers saw an act of defiant protest. Yet, to characterize this act on these simple terms is both misleading and unacceptably dignifying.
Instead, what unfolded in Rabat was a staged meltdown, a premeditated attempt to both disrupt the match and lay the groundwork for the self-victimizing arguments Senegal had prepared to put the burden of its potential defeat on CAF’s favoritism.
A confirmed penalty is not open to theatrical bargaining, and walking off the field offered could only mean self-entitled sabotage, shameful descent into conspiratorial excuses, or a choreographed attempt to sow confusion and restlessness, thus playing with the focus and mentality of the opposing team.
Many were confused by Senegal’s show of epical inelegance. As they watched in disbelief and in disgust at the disgrace Senegal was ready to pour on their AFCON, flabbergasted Moroccans could almost be heard wondering in their hearts of hearts: Is this the team we welcomed and hosted as royalty and wholeheartedly embraced as our beloved brothers in Tangier? As the mood darkened at Prince Moulay Abdellah stadium on Sunday night, there was relief as Sadio Mané convinced his teammates to return to the pitch “to play and lose like men.”
Ultimately, many Moroccans were glad Senegal returned, because they did not want their beloved team to win in such disgrace. In finally coming to their senses after significantly disrupting the final and putting AFCON on the verge of a biblical humiliation, the Senegalese made a belated contrition for their inexcusable show of disrespect to Morocco, CAF, AFCON, and the very history and image of African football their coach had invoked in his pre-match comments.
In a sentiment that he seemed to have forgotten too quickly during Sunday night’s match, Pape Thiaw said in a pre-match conference just the day before that it is Africa’s responsibility to protect its image on the global stage. He had presented the AFCON as a tournament that has reached higher standards in recent years. Yet those words rang hollow as the final descended into unprecedented chaos.
It is now worth noting that even those conciliatory, positive comments from Thiaw only came after both his federation and he himself had openly and vitriolically accused Morocco of creating an unfair and unfit environment to pave the way for the Atlas Lions to undeservedly win the final. With all of these pieces in place, the hidden reality is that Sunday’s historic chaos may have been the logical culmination of Senegal’s strategy.
With Senegal’s long “convinced that there was a plot against them,” as Jonathan Wilson wrote in the Guardian, Sunday’s pandemonium at Rabat’s Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium was largely premeditated. “It wasn’t entirely clear whether Senegal’s [pre-match] complaints were genuine or part of some broader strategy,” Wilson said. He noted, however, that because “Cameroon and Nigeria in the previous two rounds had felt Morocco had enjoyed the benefit of various refereeing decisions,” Senegal’s pre-match theatrics “may have been a pre-emptive strike against any skulduggery.”
Shooting blame before and after the whistle
Yet, both Cameroon and Nigeria were completely outclassed by the Atlas Lions on the pitch in their respective confrontations. Dominated from start to finish in their quarter-final clash against Morocco, Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions lost to a more enterprising and solid Moroccan team. The Cameroonian Lions were rendered utterly toothless and created no single scoring opportunity, and they could have lost by a far larger margin had Morocco taken advantage of most of its clear-cut scoring chances.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Super Eagles, which had arguably been the tournament’s most elegant and impressively creative team before their semifinal showdown against Morocco, were so tactically dismantled by the Atlas Lions that their midfielders and attacking trio were invisible for the whole game. Were it not for the poor finishing of Moroccan attackers and an inspired, spotless performance from defender Calvin Bassey, Nigeria would have incurred a heavy loss.
In these instances, it was understandable that both countries, given their illustrious history in the AFCON, were more tempted to blame their logical defeats on some external forces in order to avoid confronting the painful reality of Morocco’s superiority on the playing field.
However, Senegal took this blame game to a next, unprecedented level: where others waited for their games to end before telling themselves comforting stories to assuage the devastating pain of losing, Senegal deployed a system of ex ante excuses by creating a hostile atmosphere before the match and victimizing themselves as “mistreated” by both CAF and the local organizing committee.
The Senegalese Federation of Football released a statement launching a wave of complaints about organizational, logistical, and security “shortcomings” ahead of the final. They refused to train at Mohammed VI Football Complex, arguing that using Morocco’s main national team facility was inconsistent with principles of sporting fairness – a subtle way of saying that Morocco wanted to spy on their training sessions. They also complained about their team hotel assignment, though CAF confirmed that Senegal were allowed to select a hotel, and also argued that the ticket allocation did not meet their demand.
Furthermore, Coach Thiaw himself criticized the “lack of security” at the Agdal train station in Rabat and said they were in danger, though it was the Senegalese Federation that released their exact time of arrival, leading to fans flocking to welcome the team. All of these public complaints that preceded the final game were aimed at creating a mental alternative universe where CAF “clearly favored Morocco” to win the tournament. And, this devilish mind game sadly ended up working wonders for Senegal’s dream of winning their second AFCON title.
Pride, pain and polarization
Most Moroccans have voiced pride in the national team following Sunday’s devastating loss. King Mohammed VI, among various government leaders and prominent commentators, have recognized the Atlas Lions for fighting hard until their last breath. They take pride in the atmosphere the North African country carried during this tournament, despite the bitter and unexpected ending. Others take a less grateful approach, reacting with warranted anger, saying that Senegal’s decision was unacceptable and unsportsmanlike, that their inexcusably shameful abandonment of the final for over 15 minutes created a dark half hour that cast a permanent shadow over what should have been a shared celebration of African football.
In the heat of disappointment, a fringe discourse has even slid into racist language against not only the Senegalese team but Senegalese people at large, prompting strong pushback from other netizens who called for restraint and dignity, urging people to remain on the better side and refuse descent into the inexcusable. Between defiance and self-critique, the debate exposes deeper questions about sportsmanship, identity, and how such an “unfair” defeat gets processed in moments of high emotion.
On social media in neighboring countries, Morocco’s loss sparked reactions that some would describe as even louder than the final whistle itself. Many comments were colored by narrow thinking, exaggerating rivalries, or turning disappointment into sweeping judgments. This further exposed sharp divides. What many like to imagine as pan-African unity proved fragile.
Moreover, from the start of the tournament, a persistent discourse simmered online and among the participating football teams and their management, suggesting that the AFCON was tilted in Morocco’s favor. Fans and commentators scrutinized every refereeing decision and organizational choice, which led to the interpretation of every minor incident as evidence of bias.
By the time the final arrived, this narrative had fully taken hold, fueling heated debates after Morocco’s chaotic downfall.
At that crucial pre-penality moment, broadcast images captured supporters of the Teranga Lions forced their way onto the pitch and clashed with security agents. Such a mindless and scandalous intervention from supporters Moroccans had befriended and extolled throughout the tournament created scenes of disorder that cast the tournament in an internationally embarrassing light. This, for most Moroccans, is the second scandalous reason why Sunday’s final will forever be remembered as the dishonorable night of a walk of shame by our “Senegalese brothers.”
Only after lifting the trophy did Senegal’s coach Pape Thiaw, the main orchestrator of his team’s indefensible dismissal of footballing decorum, acknowledge the gravity of their outrageous walk-off. “I regret telling my players to leave the field… apologies to football,” he told beIN Sports. But that post-victory contrition did not and cannot redeem the act; it merely exposed the incident for what it was – a grotesque performative excess, a self-inflicted spectacle masquerading as protest.
In contrast, the Atlas Lions, though crestfallen in defeat, emerged with their institutional integrity intact, earning widespread praise from domestic supporters and international observers alike for their composure, merit, and unwavering commitment to fair play.
AFCON’s ultimate test of legitimacy
To be sure, African football has accumulated the visible symbols of modernity over the years – from polished stadiums, elite infrastructure, global broadcasting standards, to technocratic tools such as VAR. However, what have evolved far more evenly are the internalized norms governing conduct under constraint, and the slower, contested work of producing procedural legitimacy – the shared belief that rules bind everyone even when they hurt “us.”
With the eye of the world set on the tantalizing spectacle of the highly-anticipated showdown between the two African teams that have dominated the FIFA rankings for almost five years, Senegal soured the grandiose occasion with the most shameful of behaviors from such an illustrious, unarguably elite national team. Whatever ex post facto contrition, justification, or contextualization the Teranga Lions and their supporters might use to amend for this fiasco, the sober fact is that Sunday’s walk of shame will leave an indelibly negative mark on African football.
This disgraceful walkoff did not just take focus away from football; it left CAF and African football at large with troubling questions to contend with: Is it now normal to openly insult and accuse AFCON host nations and get away with it? Has Senegal set a precedent that it is the new-normal to walk off the field and “restore justice” whenever a team feels “disavoured” or “mistreated” by the referee?
Given the inherently emotional and tribal nature of football, these questions will receive divergent, sometimes diametrically opposed responses depending on the politics, ideologies, and even nationalities of Africans who will have to grapple with them for months – and probably years – to come. As can be seen by the continual flow of local and international support, Sunday’s events do not fully tarnish what the Atlas Lions have achieved – they reached the final at home, and they will fare on, in proof their rise is lasting, not temporary.
Even so, any fair-minded and objective observer of the historic AFCON 2025 final must ultimately concede that Senegal’s walk-off was an inexcusable disgrace.
