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CAS Upholds Espérance de Tunis’ African Champions League Title After Controversial Final
Thursday 1 August 2019, by
After more than three months of waiting, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has finally delivered its verdict. In the end, Espérance Sportive de Tunis (EST) prevails over Wydad Casablanca (WAC), retaining the trophy of the African Champions League of the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
The wait has been long and fruitless for WAC. Its case is inadmissible before the CAS, which has delivered its verdict on the controversial final that opposed it to EST. The Tunisians, against all odds, prevail over the Moroccans and retain the trophy.
With this triumph, Espérance de Tunis becomes the four-time champion of this League. Thanks to this verdict, this saga of the final of the African Champions League between Espérance Sportive de Tunis and Wydad Casablanca, which lasted three months, is finally over.
During this second leg of the African Champions League final, which pitted WAC against EST last May at the Olympic Stadium in Radès (a suburb of Tunis), the match referee, Gambian Bakary Gassama, refused to validate WAC’s equalizing goal scored by Walid Karti in the 59th minute for an alleged offside. Even the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), which was malfunctioning that memorable day, could not confirm the perfect regularity. After a long interruption, the central judge ruled that EST could be declared the winner.
Having appealed to the CAS to rule, WAC has just bitten the dust. What a fate!