King Mohammed VI of Morocco has pardoned the Senegal supporters convicted of hooliganism during the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) soccer final, \u200cwhich his country hosted earlier this year, the royal palace said on Saturday.<\/p>\n
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Eighteen Senegal fans were sentenced in April to terms of three months to a year on hooliganism-related charges, although some have already \u2060left prison after serving their sentences.<\/p>\n
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The charges included violence against security forces, throwing objects, damaging stadium infrastructure and trying to invade the pitch after VAR awarded a penalty to Morocco.<\/p>\n
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Senegal walked off in protest but returned after 14 minutes. Morocco missed the penalty and Senegal won the final 1-0.<\/p>\n
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In March, two months after the \u200cmatch \u2060in Rabat, Morocco were declared AFCON champions and Senegal were stripped of the title after the North Africans’ appeal over the result was upheld by the Confederation \u2060of African Football.<\/p>\n
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Senegal have appealed that decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, sport’s highest court.<\/p>\n
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Morocco’s pardon for the Senegal supporters \u2060was granted for “human considerations” ahead of Eid Al Adha celebrations and \u201cin view of the long-standing fraternal relation\u201d \u2060between the two nations, the palace said in a statement.<\/p>\n
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Senegal has long been one of Morocco’s closest allies in Africa.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":35276,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,20],"class_list":["post-35274","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"King Mohammed VI of Morocco has pardoned the Senegal supporters convicted of hooliganism during the AFCON","published_date":"2026-05-24 11:01:52","news_description":"King Mohammed VI of Morocco has pardoned the Senegal supporters convicted of hooliganism during the AFCON","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35277,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35274\/revisions\/35277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=35274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}