Zamalek SC v. Confederation of African Football

This case traces back to the same 27 September 2024 TotalEnergies CAF Super Cup final between Zamalek and Al Ahly in Riyadh that produced the original CAF Disciplinary Board sanctions against Zamalek and two of its players. Zamalek appealed the Disciplinary Board's decision to the CAF Appeal Board, which issued its own decision with grounds, notified to Zamalek on 4 August 2025. Zamalek filed its appeal to CAS on 14 August 2025, followed by a full Appeal Brief on 5 October 2025; CAF filed its Answer on 12 November 2025.

The dispute before CAS centred on a specific factual finding the CAF Appeal Board had made: that Zamalek's players and officials had, during the match, threatened to leave the field entirely. The sequence in question arose after match officials undertook a VAR review for a possible penalty in the 38th minute. Following objections from Zamalek's players and officials (which drew two yellow cards), most of the Zamalek players walked toward their substitutes' bench and gathered near the touchline; the goalkeeper walked over and spoke with someone from the Zamalek organisation; after a few minutes, the players returned to the pitch and the penalty was taken shortly after.

Reviewing the video footage of the incident directly, the CAS Panel held that there were no clear indications in that footage that Zamalek's players or staff had actually threatened to leave the match. The Panel further noted that the claim reflected in the General Coordinator's Report — one of three reports filed after the match, alongside the Referee Report and the Match Commissioner's Report — was not corroborated by the Referee Report, which did not even describe the events of that period of the match, nor by other evidence on file.

Having rejected the factual basis for the walkout finding, the Panel went on to hold that even taking the CAF Appeal Board's own findings at face value, the sanction imposed was disproportionate. It confirmed that the conduct of Zamalek's players and officials around the penalty incident did breach Article 83(1), read together with Article 82, of the CAF Disciplinary Code, but held the club-level fine originally set at USD 300,000 (with USD 100,000 suspended) was grossly disproportionate, and reduced it to USD 75,000, of which USD 25,000 is suspended on the same conditions as before. Zamalek's appeal was accordingly partially upheld: liability for a lesser breach was confirmed, but the financial penalty was cut by three-quarters.

This case is a useful illustration of how CAS can conduct its own independent review of the underlying factual record in a disciplinary appeal, rather than simply deferring to a federation's own characterisation of events, particularly where different official match reports do not agree with one another on what actually happened — and of how rejecting a federation's central factual finding does not always mean an appeal succeeds in full, since a lesser, still-real breach can survive even when the more serious allegation does not.