Nearly six months after the finale, the wait still continues. The affair dates back to January 18, when Senegal was crowned African champion on the field at the expense of Morocco, host country of the African Cup of Nations. But two months later, on March 17, 2026, CAF decided to withdraw the title from the Téranga Lions and award the victory to the Atlas Lions, following the numerous controversies that marked the final.
In the process, the Senegalese Football Federation, which has also just parted ways with Pape Thiaw and his staff, contacted the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The objective was clear: to have the CAF decision annulled as part of an appeal also targeting the Royal Moroccan Football Federation.
For several days, however, a document presented as an “arbitral award” from the CAS has been circulating massively on social networks. The text asserts that the court based in Lausanne would have annulled the CAF decision and officially confirmed Senegal as winner of CAN 2025. Quickly relayed by many Internet users, this document does not, however, withstand in-depth verification. Several inconsistencies in substance and form demonstrate that it is a fake, as explained by
SeneNews.
The document circulating on social networks.
An incorrect file number
The first suspicious element concerns the file reference. The viral document has the CAS number 2026/A/10857. However, when the CAS officially registered the Senegalese Football Federation’s appeal, the case had received the reference CAS 2026/A/12295, as indicated in the press release published on March 25, 2026. This difference is particularly revealing, since each procedure opened before the CAS is assigned a unique number.
The date mentioned on the alleged sentence also raises serious doubts. The document is dated June 10, 2026 and suggests that the procedure has already been definitively decided. However, at the time of registration of the appeal, the CAS still specified that an arbitral panel had to be constituted, that a procedural timetable would then be set and that the different parties would have several weeks to submit their briefs. No hearing date or decision was then announced. Under these conditions, the existence of a final verdict as of June 10 appears particularly implausible.
No official press release
Another revealing element: the document circulates only in the form of an image published on social networks. No press release from CAS, CAF or the Senegalese Football Federation confirms the existence of such a decision. No authenticated award is also available on the official channels of the Court of Arbitration for Sport. However, a verdict likely to upset the results of the African Cup of Nations would have been immediately relayed by the institutions concerned as well as by the main international sports media. The verdict is still awaited.
