After Senegal AFCON Incident, “Temporary Withdrawal” Spreads Across Leagues, Drawing Criticism of CAF and FIFA

The phenomenon of teams withdrawing from football matches, in protest against refereeing decisions, has become a “new norm” invading international stadiums. The past few weeks have witnessed similar incidents in Turkey and Europe, most notably the withdrawal of Adana Demirspor in the 30th minute against Galatasaray, and the withdrawal of Kocaelispor in the 94th minute in protest against a penalty kick.

These scenes inevitably take back to the major turning point in the final of the Africa Cup of Nations 2025 in Morocco, when the Senegalese team left the field in the last minutes of the match in protest against a penalty kick in the 98th minute for the Moroccan team before they returned to complete the match.

This behavior, which was not met with strict disciplinary decisions by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), began to find its way into other global leagues. Teams have started to use it as a tool of pressure and expression of dissatisfaction with refereeing decisions, inspired by the lack of legal strictness in dealing with this historical incident that occurred in the final of the Africa Cup of Nations by the Senegalese team.

These team withdrawals have increased in various football leagues around the world, after the decisions of the disciplinary committee of the African Football Confederation (CAF) regarding that final created a quake in the sports ethics system, where the penalties were considered “lenient” and not deterrent.

Despite Morocco’s demands for the application of legal provisions that stipulate considering the withdrawing team as a loser and excluded, CAF merely imposed financial penalties and suspensions, where the Senegalese coach Pape Thiaw was suspended for 5 matches and the Senegalese federation was fined about 600 thousand dollars, along with penalties and suspensions also on the Moroccan side, including Achraf Hakimi and Ismail Saybari.

International experts and media criticized this “leniency” in applying the laws, considering that Senegal’s escape from the strict withdrawal penalty made unsportsmanlike behavior “normalized” and implicitly acceptable in the world of football.

Observers believe that the lack of firmness in the face of these violations opens the door for their repetition in the world’s stadiums, which puts the spirit of football and the credibility of the organizing laws at stake, where the expected appeal has become a demand to reset the legal compass and protect the matches, and impose deterrent penalties to prevent “withdrawal” from becoming a bad habit that kills the joy of the game and undermines the prestige of refereeing.

In light of this situation, urgent demands have emerged for the necessity of activating the “appeal” in order to reset the standards; experts believe that the only solution to stop this deterioration is the strict application of penalties against any attempt to disrupt the progress of the matches, and the lack of firmness in the “CAN” incident not only undermined the credibility of CAF, but also encouraged teams in other leagues to adopt the same bad habit, which puts international bodies like FIFA in front of a historical responsibility to restore discipline to the stadiums and protect matches from chaos and legal recklessness.