CAF’s latest decision regarding the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final appeared, on the surface, unfair to Morocco. It angered Moroccans, made them feel wronged, and sparked legitimate questions about CAF’s fairness and Morocco’s influence.
But beyond emotion, I choose to read what happened from a colder angle: the angle of soft power. I even dare to claim — without proof — that this decision aligns with Morocco’s own strategic interests.
In political science, a country’s power is not measured only by what it imposes, but also by what it allows to happen. Real power is not always in winning, but in controlling the overall scene.
Not every sporting injustice is a sign of weakness.
In the logic of deep politics, loss can sometimes be a tool.
Today, Morocco is not merely a football team. It is a rising economic actor in Africa: its banks are present, its companies are expanding, its religious training has influence, and its investments are quietly spreading. Historically, such expansion always creates sensitivity among peoples: fear of a new dominance, of a “regional power” replacing the former colonizer.
This is where football comes in.
Football is Africa’s primary popular stage. The only language everyone understands. The mirror through which people see justice and injustice without intermediaries.
When Morocco appears on this stage as the harmed party rather than the controlling one, a powerful unconscious image is formed: “Even Morocco is treated unfairly, just like us.”
This simple sentence, in the collective subconscious, is stronger than dozens of economic agreements.
From the perspective of collective psychology, societies that experienced colonialism are extremely sensitive to anyone who seems too powerful. But they quickly empathse with those who appear wronged or limited in influence.
Victimhood creates closeness. Constant victory creates suspicion.
Sociologically, crowds release their political frustrations through sport. And when a rising state is presented in this arena as a victim, it gains enormous emotional capital—something money cannot buy.
In strategic studies, there is a well-known concept: symbolic concession. Accepting a small loss in a public scene in exchange for quiet, long-term gains. The loss here is not a trophy — the loss is a moment. And the gain is not a title — the gain is acceptance.
What Morocco fears, amid the dirty media war waged against it, is being perceived in Africa as a colonizer rather than an investor, a controller rather than a partner, arrogant rather than humble—leading to its economic arms being paralyzed and doors closing in its face, as hostile regimes dream of.
Of course, this does not require a “direct order” from Morocco to CAF. That would be a naïve simplification. It is enough that there is no escalation. That the issue does not turn into a political crisis. That the event is allowed to pass as a normal sporting wound. Sometimes silence is a position. Sometimes retreat is progress. Smart states do not win every battle — they choose which battles are worth winning.
So I am not saying this was a conspiracy, nor do I claim dark rooms where decisions are made. What I am saying is simpler — and deeper:
Objectively, the final outcome served Morocco’s image as a non-dominant state in Africa. And in the age of soft power, this image matters more than a trophy, and more than stripping Senegal of its title.
