Africa Cup of Nations 2025: Frenchman to Lead TAS Hearing in Lausanne

The legal dispute over the Africa Cup of Nations 2025 final will move to the Court of Arbitration for Sport on 8 October, when the tribunal hears Senegal’s challenge to the Confederation of African Football’s decision on the match. The hearing will take place at the TAS headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, beginning at 9:30am. It will examine whether Morocco or Senegal should officially be recognised as champions of the competition.

The panel will be chaired by French sports-law professor Gérald Simon. He will sit alongside Italian professor Luigi Fumagalli and German professor and doctor Ulrich Haas. The three arbitrators will review the arguments submitted by the Senegalese Football Federation, CAF and the other parties involved before beginning their deliberations.

The case concerns a final that Senegal won 1-0 on the pitch. The match in Rabat became heavily disputed in its closing stages after a penalty was awarded to Morocco during stoppage time. The spot-kick was missed, but the incident was followed by a prolonged interruption involving the Senegalese players.

Several Senegal players left the field for around 15 minutes after the penalty decision. The disruption became the central background to the later disciplinary and sporting proceedings. Although Senegal retained its 1-0 advantage during the match itself, the events at the end of the final led to the result being reconsidered through the CAF judicial process.

In March, the CAF appeal jurisdiction issued a decision in Morocco’s favour and officially awarded the final to the Atlas Lions. That ruling changed the official outcome of a match that Senegal had won on the field. The Senegalese federation then appealed to the TAS, asking the arbitration body to overturn CAF’s decision and declare Senegal the winner of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

The dispute therefore involves two different records of the same final. Senegal’s sporting claim rests on the 1-0 result recorded during the match, while Morocco’s official status comes from the CAF appeal decision issued after the final. The TAS proceedings will determine whether CAF’s ruling stands or whether the competition’s title must return to Senegal.

The hearing will be held behind closed doors. The parties did not request a public session, so the arguments will not be heard in an open courtroom in Lausanne. The private format means that the wider football public will have to wait for the tribunal’s eventual decision rather than following the presentation of the case in real time.

No judgment will be announced immediately after the hearing. Once the session ends, the three-member formation will deliberate, and the TAS has not indicated when its final decision will be issued. The ruling will provide the next official determination of the final’s winner and could bring an end to the long-running dispute between the Senegalese and Moroccan federations. Until then, Morocco remains the official winner under the CAF decision, while Senegal continues to contest that status through arbitration.