A swelling online campaign is demanding that if Senegal is stripped of the Africa Cup of Nations title it won in January, then the team they beat, Morocco, should lose their 1976 crown.

The problem, as an investigation by AFP Factcheck shows, is that there is no evidence to back up the claim that 50 years ago Morocco players quit the pitch, the act that cost Senegal their 2026 title.

Last week, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) stripped Senegal of their 1-0 victory because players walked off without the referee’s permission, in protest when Morocco was awarded a late penalty in the final on 18 January in Rabat.

Senegal has appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The CAF ruling has been poorly received across Africa. Many of the continent’s legion of social-media football pundits are wrongly arguing that Morocco did the same thing in their decisive match against Guinea in Ethiopia in 1976.

“It was by leaving the pitch and coming back to play that Morocco won its one and only Africa Cup of Nations in 1976,” claimed one Facebook post.

 “We’ll dig out the archives, and in the end, they’ll have zero Africa Cup of Nations titles.”

Local sports media outlets started picking up the false reports, with some saying that the Guinean Football Federation (FGF) had lodged an appeal seeking recognition of the 1976 title.

Such was the clamour that the FGF on 22 March issued a statement saying it had “not initiated any proceedings, either with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) or with CAF”.

The FGF pointed out that the 1976 competition did not end with a “traditional final”, but with a four-team “mini-league”, which “Morocco topped” by one point from Guinea.

There is no surviving complete video of the 1-1 draw with Guinea that secured Morocco’s title, but AFP sought out first-hand sources who confirmed no walk-off took place.

Cherif Souleymane, scorer of the goal that put Guinea ahead in that match on 14 March 1976, was categorical when asked if Moroccans had left the pitch.

“That’s not true,” the 82-year-old said. His goal did not “cause any incident”, he told AFP. “They won fairly, by the book.”

Furthermore, AFP has found no article or report mentioning that the Moroccan players left the pitch in protest.

“If such an event had taken place, it would have made a lasting impression; we would have heard about it,” said French Moroccan journalist Said El Abadi, author of a “History of African Football”.

He said that in researching his book, he had scoured official archives, including those of the CAF and the Moroccan Football Federation, and found no mention of such an incident.

The story originates from a broadcast by Radio France International on January 30, when pundit Remy Ngono asserted that Moroccan players left the pitch in 1976.

Ngono did not respond to AFP’s requests to explain his claim. 

–Nampa/AFP