The overturn of the Africa Cup of Nations final, with Morocco winning the title by default after it was deemed that Senegal forfeited the match, has been historic. There have been similar precedents, but never at this magnitude, with the 2019 CAF Champions League final being the most similar.
The final, played in a two-legged home and away format, started with Wydad AC from Morocco and Espérance de Tunis from Tunis drawing 1-1 in the first leg. But the second leg, played one week later on May 31, 2019, was abandoned by the Wydad Casablanca players, after the referee disallowed them a goal in the 59th minute when they were trailing 1-0 behind. When the players protested, it was found that VAR was not working, so the goal could not be reviewed.
This led to a pause of an hour and a half, and finally the referee blew the final whistle and the match ended 1-0, 2-1 on aggregate for the Tunisian club. CAF decided that the second leg should be replayed, but CAS ruled in favour of Espérance, and the match was not replayed.
The AFCON 2025 is a similar situation, but in this case, the match was only paused for 14 minutes, the players returned to the pitch and the match resumed and played until the end as usual. Senegal will base its appeal to CAS in the referee's decision to resume the match, which means that everything that happened afterwards was legal.
Another similar case was the 2023 Turkish Super Cup, played in April 2024, when Galatasaray won 3-0 by default, when Fenerbahçe players (all of them the Under 19 squad) walked off the pitch after 1 minute, to protest against their own club. The referee abandoned the game, and instead Galatasaray played a friendly match between the players.