These are multiple legal scenarios governing the “Alkan dispute” between Morocco and Senegal

Rachid Bahmani, a doctoral researcher in public law at Ibn Zohr University Agadir, presented the possible legal scenarios in the incident of the African Cup of Nations final “Morocco 2025”, after the Appeals Committee of the Confederation of African Football announced that the Senegalese team had withdrawn from the match and was legally defeated by a score of 3-0 in favor of Morocco, before the file was referred to the Court of Arbitration for Sport known as “TAS”.

Bahmani, a researcher in arbitration and business laws, recorded that the first possible scenario is that “TAS will end up supporting the appeal decision issued by CAF in whole or in substance.”

The same researcher explained, in an article received by the newspaper, that this scenario would be achieved “if the arbitral tribunal is convinced that the behavior of the Senegalese team actually falls within the scope of Article 82 of the African Cup of Nations regulations, and that the official file proves a unilateral departure or a refusal to continue playing in the strict legal sense,” and added: “In this case, the appeal decision applies the special text to established facts sufficient to justify the legal loss.”

The second scenario is for TAS to “cancel the contested decision, in whole or in part, or to refer the file again to the previous party within CAF,” according to the same source.

The author of the article considered that this possibility remains “if the court finds out that the facts, even if they are proven, do not legally rise to the level of withdrawal, refusal to play, or departure before the legal end without the referee’s permission, or if it becomes clear that the appeal decision suffers from a significant deficiency in reasoning or respect for procedural guarantees,” and he continued: “It also remains possible for TAS to see that the file needs completion or an internal re-evaluation from CAF, which makes referral a possible legal option depending on the structure of the file.”

Bahmani stressed that the Senegalese Federation’s request to directly declare that it is the winner of the tournament remains a possible legal request in terms of origin, “but it is more demanding than simply canceling the contested decision,” and continued by explaining: “If TAS is convinced that the CAF decision must be cancelled, it may choose to repeat the field result if it deems the file clear enough, but it may prefer referral if it considers that the internal decision needs a new explanation or the completion of some elements. Therefore, the outcome of the dispute is not limited to A simple binary between confirming or canceling the decision, but it extends to a broader spectrum of possible solutions.”

The researcher in the Laboratory of Studies in Political and Territorial Development and Risk Analysis, at the Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences in Agadir, explained that the legal position of the two parties at the current stage does not lead to the assertion that one of them (Morocco/Senegal) has a prior legal decision, but rather to say that Morocco is currently in a relatively advanced procedural legal position by virtue of the effective appeal decision, while Senegal has relatively serious defenses that could affect the final outcome if it succeeds in undermining the legal adaptation or procedural construction of the appealed decision. In it.