Manchester United’s training camp in Ireland was supposed to be quiet, routine, forgettable. Instead, it briefly turned into a snapshot of African football’s deepest crisis.
Asked about the Confederation of African Football’s stunning decision to strip Senegal of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations title and hand it to Morocco, Bryan Mbuemo and Amad Diallo didn’t launch into a rant. They didn’t need to.
They laughed.
Diallo then offered two words that said plenty: “No comment.”
The reaction from the Cameroonian and Ivorian attackers captured the mood sweeping across the continent. Disbelief. Frustration. And a sense that an already controversial final has now spilled into something far bigger than 120 minutes of football.
A final decided, then re-decided
On the pitch, the story felt simple enough at the time. Senegal beat Morocco 1-0 in extra time to lift the trophy on Moroccan soil. The Lions of Teranga had survived late drama, a missed Moroccan penalty from Real Madrid’s Ibrahim Diaz, and the tension of a final that needed more than 90 minutes to find a winner.
But the turning point, at least in the eyes of CAF’s Disciplinary Committee, came just before the end of normal time.
With minutes left, Morocco won a penalty. Senegal’s players walked off the pitch in protest and stayed away for a few minutes before eventually returning to finish the match. Diaz failed to convert from the spot, Senegal regrouped, and then found the decisive goal in extra time to claim what looked like a historic continental triumph.
Two months later, that history was rewritten in a boardroom.
CAF ruled that Senegal’s brief walk-off amounted to a withdrawal. The committee overturned the result, stripped Senegal of the title, and awarded Morocco a 3-0 victory and the trophy. An unprecedented move, and one that detonated a storm across African football.
Senegal push back
In Dakar, the response was immediate and furious. The Senegalese Football Federation condemned the ruling and moved to challenge it through higher authorities, determined to defend what their players believed they had already earned on the pitch.
The case now sits at the heart of a bitter legal and political fight, with Senegal seeking to restore the original result and CAF standing by a decision that has stunned players, officials, and supporters across Africa.
Every new reaction adds fuel. Every silence is scrutinised. Which is why a smirk and a “No comment” from two Premier League players suddenly felt like a headline.
Awkward laughter in a divided dressing room
Mbuemo and Diallo were speaking at a press conference during United’s camp in the Republic of Ireland, as the club tuned up for the resumption of Premier League fixtures after the international break. The AFCON question cut through the usual talk of fitness and tactics.
The irony was impossible to miss. Sharing the same dressing room is Moroccan defender Noussair Mazraoui, a member of the Atlas Lions squad at that very 2025 tournament. While CAF’s ruling handed his country the title, the reaction from his United teammates underlined just how contested that crown is in the court of public opinion.
No argument. No public condemnation. Just sarcasm, a knowing laugh, and a refusal to engage on the record.
In a saga already defined by controversy, even the jokes now feel political.
