Sénégal vs CAF : les 4 arguments qui invalident la défaite des Lions par forfait
For the first time in the history of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), an official decision has been challenged by a dissenting opinion within the organization itself, reports L'Observateur. Cape Verdean Faustino Varela Monteiro, vice-president of the CAF Appeals Committee, has distinguished himself by strongly opposing Senegal's forfeit victory in the final, awarded to Morocco (3-0).
In his arguments, reported by the Groupe Futurs Médias newspaper, he first denounces an overly "formalistic" interpretation of the law. According to him, the commission applied Article 82 of the regulations in a purely mechanical and literal manner, forgetting that the law should not be a blind reading, but rather the result of a dialogue between the text and the reality of the situation. He therefore believes that referring to the abandonment of the meeting when it resumed and concluded normally constitutes a "clear legal error." For him, Article 82, which deals with pensions and lump sums, is entirely inappropriate for this specific case.
The referee, the sole "Master of the Game"
He then emphasizes that the referee is the sole "Master of the Game." According to FIFA Law 5, he has the authority to determine what happens on the field. In this specific case, the official never considered that Senegal had abandoned the match; he judged the interruption in the 97th minute to be temporary. Since the referee ordered the resumption of play and the match was completed in 120 minutes, a disciplinary body cannot, retroactively, reclassify the incident as a "definitive abandonment."
The absence of an effective withdrawal
Monteiro also emphasizes the absence of a true withdrawal: even though the coach had asked the players to leave the field, one Senegalese player stayed and called his teammates back. The connection to the match was therefore never definitively broken.
The specter of dangerous jurisprudence
Finally, he warns against regulatory overreach. Drawing on the decisions of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), he reiterates that the referee's decisions are final. If a committee can alter the result of a match already decided on the field, it undermines the integrity of competitions and renders sport "relative." For Monteiro, only the decision of the Disciplinary Committee, which respected the sporting result, was legally valid.
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