Zamalek SC v. Confederation of African Football (CAF)

Zamalek won the second leg of the 2023/24 CAF Confederation Cup final 1-0 at Cairo International Stadium on 19 May 2024, taking the title on away goals after a 2-2 aggregate draw with RS Berkane. The CAS award itself describes three distinct incidents arising from that match: an invasion of the pitch, the use of pyrotechnic objects, and an attempted assault on the match officials that the award places after the medal presentation, involving members of the Berkane delegation as play concluded. The full award also describes a separate episode in which Zamalek supporters, attempting to reach the pitch through the stadium tunnel, forced or damaged a garage door at the tunnel entrance. Given the genuine complexity of attributing each specific incident to a specific side across a chaotic post-match scene, the award itself does not assign each of the three headline incidents definitively to one club or the other; what is clear is that the CAF Disciplinary Board's original ruling, and CAS's later review of it, treated Zamalek as bearing primary responsibility for the sanctions that followed, while RS Berkane was separately and independently sanctioned for its own distinct role in the same post-match disorder.

The CAF Disciplinary Board sanctioned Zamalek with four matches behind closed doors (two suspended for 12 months) and a USD 200,000 fine in a first-instance decision from September 2024. The CAF Appeal Board dismissed Zamalek's challenge to that decision, finding the sanctions proportionate to the severity of the conduct.

Zamalek appealed to CAS. The panel confirmed Zamalek's underlying liability and left the closed-doors sporting sanction untouched, but found room for mitigation on the financial penalty specifically, in part because RS Berkane had separately been fined a considerably smaller amount for its own role in the same incidents. The appeal was partially upheld: CAS reduced the financial sanction by half, from USD 200,000 to USD 100,000.