GROUNDS FOR SENEGALESE FOOTBALL FEDERATION APPEAL AGAINST CAF DECISION

GROUND 1:

The CAF Appeal Board Exceeded Its Jurisdiction by Overriding the Referee’s Final Authority.

The referee’s decision to resume play was a final “fact connected with play” under IFAB Law 5.

The match referee, Jean-Jacques Ndala, faced with Senegal’s walk-off, made an active decision NOT to abandon the match.

He waited for the players to return, confirmed their willingness to continue, and restarted play.

He then officiated the remainder of the match, including extra time, and signalled its conclusion.

Under IFAB Law 5, this sequence of decisions constitutes “facts connected with play” that are “final” and not subject to retroactive revision by a disciplinary body.

The referee’s judgment that the match could and should continue is entitled to absolute deference.

GROUND 2:

The Match Was Completed; Therefore Articles 82 and 84 Cannot Apply Retroactively.

Articles 82 and 84 are designed for matches that are ABANDONED, not matches that are COMPLETED.

Article 84 contains a critical qualification: “unless the opponent has scored a more advantageous result at the time when the match was interrupted, in this case this score will be maintained” .

This provision contemplates a scenario where a match is INTERRUPTED and NEVER RESUMED.

It allows the score at interruption to stand if advantageous to the non-offending team.

But here, the match WAS resumed.  It WAS completed.

The “time when the match was interrupted” is irrelevant because the match continued to its natural conclusion.

CAF’s interpretation would require ignoring 90+ minutes of football played AFTER the interruption.

No precedent exists for overturning a completed match.

As multiple media sources confirm, “there is no known instance of a major football final being overturned and the title being awarded to another team”.

This alone demonstrates the extraordinary and legally untenable nature of CAF’s decision.

GROUND 3:

The Principle of “Sporting Results Should Be Left Unturned”

CAS has “consistently applied a restrictive approach” to overturning results.

In a recent published decision (CAS), the panel stated:

“It is a general principle in the context of sports law that sporting results should, in principle, be left unturned, i.e. the sporting result shall be determined on the field and not by a court after the particular match or competition”.

This principle applies with particular force where, as here, the CAF Disciplinary Board itself initially declined to disturb the result .

Only upon Morocco’s appeal, two months later, was the result overturned.

The legal certainty that underpins all sporting competition requires that once a trophy is lifted and celebrations held, the result is final absent extraordinary circumstances.

No such circumstances exist here.

The grounds Senegal has to win this case are a lot.