Marrakech – There is an old expression in political culture – the dance of the slaughtered rooster. It describes the frantic, convulsive movements of a creature that has already met its end but refuses to accept it. The legs kick, the body thrashes, but the outcome is sealed.
On Saturday at the Stade de France, the Senegalese national team delivered the most spectacular performance of that dance the football world has ever witnessed.
Before their friendly match against Peru, Senegal’s players walked onto the pitch carrying the AFCON 2025 trophy – a title that is no longer theirs. Captain Kalidou Koulibaly cradled the cup in his arms while his teammates, clad in tracksuits, paraded it around the field in front of 70,000 spectators.
They did laps. They passed it hand to hand. They deposited it in the presidential box before Senegalese Football Federation (FSF) president Abdoulaye Fall. Youssou Ndour provided the soundtrack. All that was missing was the confetti.
A provocation dressed up as a celebration
The Confederation of African Football’s (CAF) Appeal Board ruled on March 17 that Senegal forfeited the AFCON final. The ruling was unambiguous.
Articles 82 and 84 of the competition’s regulations state, in language that leaves no room for creative interpretation, that any team that abandons the pitch before the end of regulation time shall be considered the losing side and eliminated from the tournament.
Senegal’s players walked off the field in Rabat on January 18. Their coach, Pape Thiaw, ordered them to do so. The consequences were always written in black and white.
Morocco is the champion of Africa. That is not an opinion. That is the institutional, regulatory, and legal reality confirmed by the governing body of African football.
Yet Senegal refuses to let go. The FSF filed an appeal before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Wednesday. That is their right, and no one disputes it. Legal channels exist for a reason.
But staging a trophy parade for a title you have been stripped of, on foreign soil, in front of tens of thousands, while your case is still pending – that is not a legal strategy. That is theatrical insubordination dressed up as patriotism.
And the Moroccan legal community, however, has taken notice and was not content to watch this farce unfold in silence. Moroccan lawyer Mourad Elajouti, president of the Club of Lawyers in Morocco, indicated that formal notices had already been sent on Friday to the organizers of the event, including the Stade de France operators, explicitly warning against any public presentation of the trophy.
The message was clear: proceeding with the ceremony would amount to recognizing a championship that no longer exists and celebrating a title that has been formally revoked by the competent sporting authority. They went ahead anyway.
‘A major strategic error’
Elajouti escalated further on Saturday, confirming that his organization mandated a judicial commissioner to physically attend the Stade de France and document every detail of the spectacle – the organizers present, the logos displayed, the exhibition of the trophy.
That report will be transmitted directly to FIFA’s Ethics Commission and Disciplinary Committee. Every handshake, every lap of honor, every second of that parade is now on the record.
Elajouti put it bluntly: the celebration constitutes “a major strategic error” that will hang over Senegal’s head like a sword of Damocles when the CAS examines the merits of the case. He described it as an act of “institutional insubordination” and “characterized defiance toward the authority of res judicata.”
He is right. The FSF is not merely challenging a ruling through proper channels. It is actively undermining the authority of the institution that issued it – while simultaneously asking a higher body to overturn it. That is not how serious federations conduct themselves. That is how you torch your own credibility before the very tribunal you need to convince, and it is how you seal your own coffin.
Senegal walked straight into the trap – eyes open, arms full, trophy raised. Every camera flash, every lap of honor, every drumbeat at the Stade de France was not a celebration of victory. It was a farewell ceremony.
The FSF just threw itself the most expensive goodbye party in African football history, gifting the CAS a dossier of institutional defiance so damning that no arbitration panel on earth could ignore it. You do not spit in the face of the body that holds your fate and then ask it for mercy.
The Saint-Denis mayor, Bally Bagayoko, joined the procession and declared that “Africa is united, all behind Senegal.” With all due respect, Africa is not united behind Senegal. Not “all” Africans, anyway. If anything, Africa watched Senegal’s players abandon the field during the continent’s biggest match. Africa watched and judged.
Senegal can file every appeal available to it. That is the civilized way to contest a decision. But parading a trophy you do not hold, before a crowd you have misled, while a judicial process you initiated is still underway – that is not strength. That is the frantic thrashing of a rooster that does not yet know it is finished.
Read also: AFCON Final: Senegal Politicizes CAS Strategy to Offset Legal Weakness
