CAF Appeal Board — Samuel Eto'o / Fédération Camerounaise de Football

Samuel Eto'o Fils — four-time African Player of the Year and, since his re-election in November 2025, president of the Cameroon Football Federation (FECAFOOT) — was watching Match 46 of AFCON 2025, Cameroon's quarter-final against Morocco, from the VIP stand at Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat on 9 January 2026. With Cameroon trailing 2-0, forward Bryan Mbeumo went down inside the Moroccan penalty area in what Cameroon's camp considered a penalty; no spot-kick was given. Eto'o reacted angrily from the stand, gesturing toward his Moroccan counterpart, Royal Moroccan Football Federation president Fouzi Lekjaa, who was seated nearby — all of this playing out in the presence of CAF President Patrice Motsepe himself.

The CAF Disciplinary Board found Eto'o in breach of the confederation's statutes on loyalty, integrity and sportsmanship over that conduct, imposing a four-match ban from attending CAF stadiums and a USD 20,000 fine.

Eto'o appealed, and on 5 August 2026 the CAF Appeal Board set aside the Disciplinary Board's ruling in its entirety, cancelling both the stadium ban and the fine with immediate effect and imposing no replacement sanction of any kind. FECAFOOT welcomed the reversal in a statement expressing its "confidence in the judicial bodies" of CAF and describing the decision as evidence of the Appeal Board's independence and commitment to impartial justice.

The case is a useful counterpoint to the Senegal/Morocco forfeiture matter elsewhere in this library: both arose from the same tournament's disciplinary apparatus, but here the Appeal Board sided entirely with the federation official rather than upholding the first-instance sanction — a reminder that a Disciplinary Board finding is not the last word even when senior CAF and rival-federation officials were present to witness the underlying conduct themselves.