Senegal will present the Africa Cup of Nations trophy to its fans in France on Saturday despite the decision by CAF to strip the country of its 2025 title and award it to Morocco instead, the Senegalese FA said.
Senegal has also added a second star to its kit to mark AFCON, having previously stated that the kit — produced by Puma in August last year — would only have one star on it due to “manufacturing deadlines.”
Senegal’s FA posted a timetable of events to its Instagram page ahead of a friendly against Peru in Paris, which includes an official presentation of the AFCON trophy a few hours before kickoff.
At a news conference in Paris afterwards, Abdoulaye Fall, president of the Senegalese FA, said Senegal was the victim of “the most grossly unfair administrative robbery” in the history of football when it was stripped of the ACON title.
Fall also said that Senegal will fight to defend its players’ “honour” at the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Lawyer Seydou Diagne said Senegal suffered a “betrayal” and has gathered international lawyers from Switzerland, Spain, France and Senegal to plead the case.
Senegal’s legal team said the country still considers itself the champion of Africa despite the CAF’s ruling.
The CAF’s appeals board ruled that Senegal is “declared to have forfeited the final” and its 1-0 win in extra time became a 3-0 default win for host nation Morocco.
“If CAS let this situation happen, the winner of the next World Cup could be decided within a lawyers’ firm,” Diagne said.
Senegal’s appeal to be reinstated as Africa Cup champion was registered on Wednesday by CAS, which set no timetable for a likely long process toward a verdict.
The appeal was promised by the Senegalese government, which also called for an international investigation “into suspected corruption” within the CAF.
Lawyers for the Senegalese FA said during the news conference they were investigating whether members of the CAF appeals panel may have been corrupted and, if so, could file legal action.
An appeal to CAS can typically take months to schedule a hearing then weeks or months more to announce a verdict.
Senegal’s lawyers, however, will ask CAS to open an expedited procedure and hope the Moroccan federation and the CAF agree so that the case can be dealt with within two months.
On Friday, Senegal FA’s Instagram page posted a video with forward Iliman Ndiaye modelling a shirt with two stars above the badge, marking the AFCON wins in 2021, and 2025. The caption was simply two star emojis.
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