CAF Disciplinary Board v. Étoile Sportive du Sahel

Étoile Sportive du Sahel was charged with spectator misbehaviour after its supporters threw objects onto the field, including handrails, during the club's TotalEnergies CAF Champions League fixture against Espérance Sportive de Tunis on 12 March 2022.

This was not the club's first such offence: Étoile Sportive du Sahel had already been found guilty of spectator misbehaviour on 17 February 2022 and fined USD 7,500 for a separate incident.

Given the new incident and the prior conviction, the CAF Disciplinary Board escalated the sanction beyond a further fine: it ordered Étoile Sportive du Sahel to play its next CAF inter-club competition match as host — its group-stage fixture against Jwaneng Galaxy of Botswana, scheduled for 1 April 2022 — entirely behind closed doors, in addition to a further USD 10,000 fine.

Read alongside Espérance's own repeat-offence case from the same disciplinary sitting (arising from the very same two fixtures), this ruling shows CAF applying an escalating-sanctions approach to both clubs involved in the same volatile derby simultaneously, each moving from a fine-only sanction on their first offence to a sporting sanction once a second incident followed.