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Senegal Morocco Africa Cup of Nations 2026Getty
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Senegalese website: Setback for Morocco in the Africa Cup of Nations final case

A Senegalese report has claimed that what it described as a setback for Morocco unfolded during the hearing before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, part of the legal dispute with Senegal over the Africa Cup of Nations final. The claims rest on what the report called "information leaked from a closed session", details of which have not been officially confirmed.

Senegalese website "Seni News" alleged that, during the hearing in the Swiss city of Lausanne, the Moroccan side tried to lean on a second report attributed to Congolese referee Jean Jacques Ndala, hoping to present a different account of what happened in the final.

According to "Seni News", the referee's official report recorded that the match stopped in the 97th minute before play resumed around 12 minutes later. It made no mention, the website says, of Senegal withdrawing or being deemed to have lost the match.

Representatives of the Confederation of African Football then questioned whether the second, "fabricated" report existed at all. That line of argument was dropped from the discussions, the website claims, after a row during the session.

Morocco's defence also queried the possibility that Ndala had been influenced by his compatriot Olivier Savary, head of the referees' committee at the Confederation of African Football. The website offered no public evidence in its report to back up the claim.

Senegal's defence, by contrast, stuck rigidly to the principle of "the field of play", which holds that refereeing decisions on the facts of a match and its result are final unless corruption or bad faith is proven.

All of it, though, comes from one website's account of alleged leaks from a closed session. None of it can be treated as confirmed fact or as a ruling from the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The court's final decision will settle the dispute between the two parties.

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