CAF Disciplinary Board v. Fédération Royale Marocaine de Football & Ismael Saibari (Superseded on Appeal)

This case addresses the sanctions CAF's Disciplinary Board imposed on the Moroccan side of the 2025 AFCON final in Rabat, in the same 29 January 2026 ruling that separately sanctioned Senegal's coach and players for the walk-off protest and its aftermath.

The Disciplinary Board fined Morocco player Ismaël Saibari USD 100,000 and suspended him for three official CAF matches for his own conduct during the match, addressed separately from the broader team and federation sanctions.

The Board additionally fined the Fédération Royale Marocaine de Football (FRMF) USD 200,000 for the inappropriate behaviour of the stadium's ball boys during the final — a category of sanctionable conduct distinct from player or supporter misconduct, holding the host federation responsible for personnel operating on its own matchday staff.

Both of these specific sanctions were later revised on appeal: on 17 March 2026, the CAF Appeal Board reduced Saibari's suspension to two matches, one of which was itself suspended, and set aside his USD 100,000 fine entirely; the FRMF's ball-boys fine was separately reduced from USD 200,000 to USD 50,000. Neither Saibari's sanction nor the FRMF's own ball-boys fine were the central issue on that appeal — the Appeal Board's main focus was the separate forfeiture ruling against Senegal, addressed in the companion case elsewhere in this library — but both were revisited and reduced in the same decision.

Read together with the Senegal-side sanctions in the companion case, this ruling shows CAF's Disciplinary Board treating the controversial final as generating multiple, separately-reasoned charges against both national federations and individuals on both sides, rather than framing the entire episode as a single dispute about Senegal's conduct alone — and shows that even sanctions not directly at issue in a federation's own appeal can still be revisited and reduced as part of the same appellate ruling.