“Everything comes to those who wait,” a renowned proverb says. But at the Confederation of African Football (CAF) headquarters, waiting sometimes feels like a Shakespearean eternity — or more accurately, like a bad remake of “The Desert of the Tartars”. It took 58 long days — an eternity in the era of modern football where decisions are made to the millisecond — for the CAF Appeals Committee to finally emerge from its bureaucratic slumber and deliver its verdict on the 2025 AFCON final.
The curtain has fallen, and for once, the play does not end in tragedy in the face of justice. The decision finally meets the requirements of law, sporting ethics, and common sense: the Appeals Jury declared the FRMF’s protest admissible and well-founded, sweeping aside the Disciplinary Jury’s missteps with a flick of the wrist.
The law, nothing but the law: from Tangier to Lagouira
This verdict is above all the triumph of a cardinal virtue: institutional resilience. Faced with coordinated media attacks and behind-the-scenes pressure that looked more like cheap intrigue than sporting diplomacy, the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) showed unshakeable faith in the power of regulations. It is a resounding victory of law over agitation, of sacred text over deceptive pretext.
This tenacity bears one signature: that of its president. While others would have given in to noise or sterile polemics, Fouzi Lekjaa stayed the course with surgical calmness, prioritizing the law and the strict application of the rules. This legal victory triggered a legitimate wave of joy that swept across all of Morocco, from Tangier to Lagouira. It is a celebration for justice restored, the recognition of a merit reinstated by regulations, uniting the nation behind sporting legality.
The Rock of the Law: Articles 82 and 84
For those amnesiac about sports law and for bad-faith interpreters, the ultimate verdict of the 3-0 forfeit win for Morocco came down to two legislative pillars:
Article 82 (Refusal to play / Abandoning the field):
“Any team that refuses to continue a match or leaves the field before full time without the referee’s authorization violates the regulations. This includes the behavior of players and technical staff who fail to respect refereeing decisions.”
Article 84 (Forfeit and Elimination):
“If refusal to play or abandonment is confirmed (as per Article 82), the team is considered to have forfeited. The score is recorded as 3–0 against them.”
The law is clear, the sanctions are mechanical. Emotion cannot overrule regulations and sport stops where the law begins.
The Haters’ Disillusionment
Naturally, this return to institutional reality triggered an earthquake on some TV panels in Paris, Algiers, and Cairo, where the atmosphere felt like a first-class funeral.
Claude Le Roy, the eternal “White Wizard” whose prophecies increasingly resemble Grimm tales for unsuspecting children, feigned armchair indignation. The tune is familiar: behind the pose of the offended sage lies the poorly digested frustration of never having been able to coach the Atlas Lions. He who never missed a chance to send signals toward Rabat for decades now seems to turn his unrequited affection into a permanent indictment.
As for Wael Gomaa, he was sharply put back in his place by a memorable sliding tackle from Youssef Chippo on the beIN Sports set. While the Egyptian was posing as the guardian of a conveniently flexible morality, Chippo refreshed his memory with metronomic precision. He recalled that Egypt has historically benefited from CAF’s generosity — favors as monumental and enduring as the Pyramids of Giza and a necessary clarification that sent Gomaa back to his own contradictions.
However, the award for the most despicable goes to the inimitable Hafid Derradji. Now deprived of a microphone by his employer after his catastrophic social-media outbursts, the man sulks in the shadows. Silenced in commentary, he turns to his favorite sport: weaponizing the weak. Lacking arguments, he slips into Pavlovian anti-Moroccan rhetoric, targeting the kingdom and howling with the wolves in hopes of scraping a few survival likes. Ridiculing the law to exist online is a tactic, but breaking one’s teeth on it is a habit.
The Battle of Narratives: Beyond CAS
But let’s not be mistaken. If the current victory is legal, the coming battle — before the inevitable appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) — requires a strategic corollary: an intelligent and assertive occupation of the international media space. Morocco must not only be right in Lausanne’s deliberation rooms; it must impose its narrative under the world’s spotlight. Faced with disinformation, our response must be top-tier storytelling, capable of turning the coldness of regulations into a universal cause for sporting ethics. The Moroccan victory must be total: both legal and media-driven.
CAF and ‘My Brother’: The Art of Stalling
Still, if the verdict is just, the process was indeed tedious. Watching CAF hesitate for two months over filmed evidence remains perplexing. But should we really be surprised given the organization led by – colloquially called “My Brother” Patrice Motsepe? For him, urgency is handled with the speed of a snail sliding over marble. This inertia only fuels suspicions. Governing means anticipating. In Cairo, they seem to prefer burying their heads in the sand.
Let’s not celebrate too early. This is only one battle won before the final act. In African football, where rumor often outweighs reality, the path to truth is full of obstacles. Let us remain vigilant, for as the saying goes: “Truth is like the sun. It can be dimmed, but it never goes out.”
And for those still straining their lungs to deny the obviousness of the rules, remember this proverb from home, as sharp as a final verdict: “The ‘Berrahs’ shout… and the Boraq passes.”