By Sam Nyamweya
It is with total disbelief that the Confederation of African Football made a boardroom decision to strip Senegal of their duly won Africa Cup of Nations title on Tuesday.
This is not only an unprecedented but also an exceptionally serious decision based on a manifestly erroneous interpretation of the regulations, leading to a grossly illegal and deeply unjust decision.
The decision by CAF has left more questions than answers given that the match was played to the final whistle and there was no abandonment whatsoever.
Granted, Senegal players were at fault to walk out of the pitch after the referee awarded Morocco what was seen as a questionable penalty deep into added time.
However, in a sport manly decision after being convinced by their captain Sadio Mane, the Senegal players returned to the pitch and the penalty was taken and saved by the Senegal goalkeeper.
Senegal went on to score in extra time in full glare of the entire world to win the title.
However CAF has gone ahead to strip the Senegalese of the title after Morocco lodged a complaint is to say the least daylight robbery.
Football rules dictate that the winner on the pitch of play gets the points or the title in the event it is a final match- unless there are other breaches. In this case, the match officials allowed the game to continue to its completion, how again does the winner forfeit the title.
CAF needs to address complains raised during the tournament where there was much debate about refereeing decisions and VAR, with accusations from some journalists that Morocco were treated favourably by some officials.
The action by CAF is setting a dangerous precedent and will erode the gains African football has made over the years.
As a football stakeholder and having served in CAF committed, I call on the top leadership of CAF to come out and sort the mess that has been caused by this ruling.
Football must be won on the pitch and not on boardrooms.
The writer is the Emeritus Football Kenya Federation (FKF) President
