Since the Confederation of African Football issued its statement declaring Morocco the winner of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, an atmosphere of mourning seems to prevail in Marca’s editorial offices.
So downcast, combative, and hostile is their reporting and assessment of this particular issue that, reading everything they have churned out since the CAF announcement, one gets the impression that Spain has just lost a World Cup final to Morocco (something that, incidentally, could happen this very year or in 2030).
The death of objectivity
Indeed, a simple look at the headlines and talking points of Marca’s AFCON reporting, from the kickoff to this latest CAF ruling following weeks of debates over what to make of Senegal’s inexcusable walkoff, it is unmistakably clear that the outlet’s atavistic bias and hostility toward Morocco drives its perception of everything related to the North African kingdom. And this deeply-seated animosity towards Rabat has ultimately blinded Marca to the point that it no longer seems to have any qualms about staining its own reputation and credibility by publishing articles full of verifiable nonsense and the wildest, conspiratorial claims about Morocco.
Almost immediately after CAF announced its latest ruling regarding the scandalous AFCON final, Spanish newspapers jumped on yet what they appear to perceive as another opportunity to smear Morocco. They could have chosen to accurately inform their readers by providing the background details of the CAF’s ruling, or by explaining the long, complex saga that made such a harsh punishment of Senegal’s unjustifiable walk-off one of the most appropriate ways of protecting African football from a repeat of the Rabat final.
But Marca and other Spanish outlets rarely care about details, objectivity, and accuracy when it comes to Morocco. It is thus no surprise that, just hours after the CAf announcement, they have already released several articles whose common denominator has been to misinform, distort the facts, and discredit Morocco.
In their usual selective outrage when it comes to Morocco, they have chosen to dismiss the legal reasoning behind the CAF decision to instead portray Morocco as the villain and Senegal as the victim of alleged wrongdoing. CAF, in their biased and conspiratorial telling, is supposedly “held hostage” by Morocco.
This approach is not new in the Spanish press when it comes to Morocco. Anyone familiar with the tumultuous relations between the two countries knows the sinister and harmful role that the Spanish press has played for more than 170 years in these relations.
Instead of focusing on the scandalous and unsportsmanlike behavior of the Senegalese players — which has set a dangerous precedent for the integrity and even the future of football — Marca and AS have treated us to provocative headlines such as: “The scandal of the century in the Africa Cup, from Morocco’s statement to the reaction of the protagonists: ‘It wasn’t pride, it was the rules,’” or “It was obvious that Morocco was going to win,” or “Global scandal: the Africa Cup is taken away from Senegal and given to Morocco.”
In its eagerness to distort reality and construct a narrative detached from the facts, Marca has limited itself to highlighting the reactions of the Senegalese players, as if these had any legal value or could alter the CAF’s final decision.
And, of course, since the objective appears to be to discredit Morocco and suggest that it controls CAF, they have not said a single word about the confederation’s regulations or about the serious precedent that would have been set for the future of football had CAF not strictly applied its own rules.
CAF rules leave no Room for debate
Still, whether Marca and AS like it or not, CAF regulations are crystal clear and allow no interpretation or leave no room for ambiguity when it comes to the kind of walk off Senegalese players staged during the AFCON final in Rabat. First, there is a clear case that the referee violated CAF’s own regulations by failing to blow the final whistle after the Senegalese players left the field without his authorization.
Article 82 of CAF regulations is unequivocal in this regard. “Any team that leaves the field of play before the end of the regulation match time without the referee’s authorization shall be considered the loser,” it states categorically.
The wording of this article is important. The expression “shall be considered the loser,” rather than “may be considered,” clearly means that the provision leaves no discretion to the referee — nor to CAF, for that matter — to refrain from applying the mandatory sanction required when this situation occurs.
Moreover, since the article does not provide for any exception allowing a team to return to the field (that is, it does not state “unless the team returns”), and because it does not specify the duration of the withdrawal from the pitch for it to be regarded as such (whether two, five, or fifteen minutes or more), it ought to be automatically applied as soon as the behavior described in Article 82 takes place. In short, the mere occurrence of the situation described in this article automatically triggers the application of the stipulated rule.
The second aspect, closely linked to the first, concerns the non-application of Article 12 of the IFAB Laws of the Game, which clearly states that any player who leaves the field without the referee’s authorization must receive a yellow card.
By failing to apply this rule, the referee caused irreparable injustice to Morocco. Had the rule been properly applied, two Senegalese players who were already on yellow cards — namely Ismaïla Sarr and Hadji Diouf — would have been sent off.
This would have forced Senegal to continue the match with nine players. Should this have occurred, Morocco would have most probably gone on to win the game, regardless of Brahim Dìaz’s missed penalty.
Anxiety over Morocco’s assertiveness ahead of 2030 World Cup
Even as Marca, AS, and most other Spanish outlets jump on any opportunity to smear Morocco, there are still in Spain many sensible and honest people who continue to defend legality, regardless of any other considerations.
One of them is former referee Iturralde González. During a debate on the program El Larguero, just minutes after CAF’s decision, González was emphatic in stating without hesitation that CAF had finally come to its senses to apply its own regulations by punishing Senegal in accordance with the gravity of their misbehavior during the AFCON final. In stripping Senegal of the trophy, he argued, CAF had simply corrected the serious refereeing blunder that allowed the final to continue after Senegal had effectively forfeited the game.
“Every society needs rules, and every sport has its rules of the game. If you want to play this sport, you must accept them; and if you want to be part of a society, you must also accept its laws. According to Article 82, if you leave the field, you are considered to have lost the match,” González explained.
The former Spanish referee was even more emphatic when, responding to another panelist who blamed the referee for failing to apply the rule in this particular situation, he stated: “The first to commit an infraction are the Senegalese players, not the referee. Afterwards, the referee does not end the match and makes a mistake.”
Likewise, González recalled the wording of Article 82 of CAF’s regulations. As indicated above, the article categorically suggests that, regardless of whether the game was resumed or not, the gravity of Senegal’s infraction made them lose the match automatically.
In Morocco, we are fully aware that this determination of the Spanish sports press to discredit our country is neither fortuitous nor a mere coincidence. On the contrary, it is driven by the mounting anxiety (even fear) about how to deal with Morocco’s legitimate aspirations to be an equal partner in the organization of the 2030 World Cup.
Morocco has emphatically conveyed to Spain that it would not tolerate being treated as a junior partner in this joint endeavor. This can be seen in the Moroccan football federation’s determination to defend the kingdom’s right to host the highest possible number of World Cup games, including the final.
And this Moroccan attitude of increasing self-confidence and assertiveness is not welcome in Spain, where many political and intellectual elites still harbor a superiority complex. The Spanish press is neither willing nor able to view Morocco as an equal.
Hence, as it dawns on them that the North African country is actually quite compellingly establishing itself as a serious contender to host the final of the 2030 World Cup and also secure more matches than was initially envisaged in Spain, their strategy is to discredit Morocco by launching their usual smearing and name-calling campaign. Good luck with that.
Samir Bennis is the co-founder and publisher of Morocco World News. You can follow him on Twitter @SamirBennis.