{"id":81893,"date":"2026-01-19T12:30:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T12:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=81893"},"modified":"2026-01-19T12:50:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T12:50:06","slug":"infantino-condemns-senegal-players-walkout-after-afcon-final-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2026\/01\/19\/infantino-condemns-senegal-players-walkout-after-afcon-final-drama\/","title":{"rendered":"Infantino Condemns Senegal Players\u2019 Walkout After AFCON Final Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Samuel Adeola<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>FIFA President Gianni Infantino has condemned the conduct of some Senegal players and officials following chaotic scenes during the Africa Cup of Nations final against Morocco on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Several Senegal players walked off the pitch late in normal time to protest a penalty awarded to Morocco after a VAR review for a foul on Brahim Diaz. The match was still goalless at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Infantino described the action as \u201cunacceptable,\u201d insisting that leaving the field of play in protest undermines the integrity of football. He also warned that violence and disorder have no place in the sport.<\/p>\n<p>Tensions had already risen after a Senegal goal was ruled out moments earlier, a decision many players disputed. While most of the team left the pitch, Sadio Mane remained and attempted to persuade his teammates to return.<\/p>\n<p>The situation escalated as some Senegal supporters tried to access the pitch, leading to clashes with security officials and a delay of nearly 20 minutes. When play resumed, Diaz\u2019s penalty was saved by Senegal goalkeeper Edouard Mendy. Senegal eventually secured a 1-0 victory through a Pape Gueye goal in extra time.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the controversy, Infantino praised Morocco for hosting a successful tournament but stressed the need for teams to respect match officials\u2019 decisions, adding that CAF is expected to take appropriate disciplinary action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Samuel Adeola FIFA President Gianni Infantino has condemned the conduct of some Senegal players and officials following chaotic scenes during the Africa Cup of Nations final against Morocco on Sunday. Several Senegal players walked off the pitch late in normal time to protest a penalty awarded to Morocco after a VAR review for a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":81894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81893"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81900,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81893\/revisions\/81900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}