Juventus Among 5 Teams Stripped of Titles After Senegal Lost AFCON Crown
- Senegal’s AFCON crown is the latest in a long line of major trophies later taken away from teams after disciplinary rulings
- Match-fixing, bribery, ineligible players and walk-offs have all led to championships being erased from records
- In several cases, the title was not handed to another side, leaving the campaign officially without a champion in that year
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The football world was rocked this week after Senegal were stripped of the Africa Cup of Nations title they won in January, with CAF ruling they had forfeited the final and awarding Morocco a 3-0 victory instead.
The decision from CAF’s Appeals Board was made in line with the competition’s regulations, wiping out the dramatic result on the pitch that had originally seen the Teranga Lions crowned as African champions.
Source: Getty Images
In a statement published on CAF’s official website on Tuesday, March 17, the panel confirmed that Senegal had officially forfeited the final played on January 18, 2026, at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Sports Complex in Morocco.
As a result of a successful appeal by the Fédération Royale Marocaine de Football (FRMF), the match has now been recorded as a 3-0 win for the host nation.
But this is far from the first time a team has been stripped of a title after appearing to win it.
YEN.com.gh has looked back at five other occasions when teams lost their crowns after the event, along with the reasons behind those punishments.
Football teams stripped of their titles
Elgin City – 1992/93
Elgin City may be one of the lesser-known names on this list, but their title controversy remains one of the strangest.
The club believed they had secured the Highland League title in the 1992/93 season after thrashing Forres Mechanics 6-0 on the final day.
However, they had done so by exploiting what they thought was a loophole.
Elgin brought the fixture forward by 24 hours, moving it from Saturday to Friday night, so that several players due to serve suspensions would still be eligible to play.
One of those was player-manager John Teasdale, as reported by the Press and Journal.
The league responded by stripping Elgin City of the championship.
Runners-up Cove Rangers refused to accept the title by default, meaning the season ultimately went into the record books without an official winner.
Elgin have continued to appeal the decision ever since, with their most recent attempt coming in 2018 when they tried to have players’ medals restored, but the ruling still stands.
Olympique Marseille – 1992/93
The 1992/93 campaign should have gone down as one of the finest in Olympique Marseille’s history after they won both Ligue 1 and the Champions League.
However, their domestic triumph was later taken away after it emerged that club owner Bernard Tapie had tried to bribe opposition players during the run-in.
Tapie offered 250,000 francs to Valenciennes players Christophe Robert, Jorge Burruchaga and Jacques Glassman in an attempt to get them to ease off against Marseille.
Glassman refused the offer and reported it to the referee, and the fallout was severe.
Marseille were stripped of the league title and relegated to Ligue 2, and Paris Saint-Germain refused to accept the title in their place, so the season officially has no winner.
However, Les Phocéens were allowed to keep that season's UEFA Champions League title despite further allegations involving match-fixing and doping.
Shanghai Shenhua – 2003
Long before Shanghai Shenhua used their financial power to attract stars such as Nicolas Anelka, Didier Drogba, and Carlos Tevez to China, the club was found guilty of using money in a very different way.
They had reportedly bribed referees during their 2003 title-winning season, although the full story did not emerge until years later.
Source: Getty Images
In 2011, general manager Lou Shifang was exposed for paying referees during the 2003 campaign, initially in relation to a crucial Shanghai derby, China Daily reported.
At first, that offence alone did not lead to the title being removed, but further details showed that Shifang had also bribed officials in a match against rivals Shaanxi Guoli.
That prompted the Chinese Football Association to act, and in 2013, the 2003 championship was erased from the records.
Shanghai Shenhua were stripped of the title, and no replacement winner was named.
Genoa – 2004/05
Before Diego Milito became a treble winner with Inter Milan, he was Genoa’s star man in Serie B during the 2004/05 campaign.
The Argentine scored 21 goals to help fire the club toward promotion as champions, but events off the pitch soon changed everything.
On the final day of the season, Genoa needed a win to secure promotion.
Their directors, apparently unconvinced that the team would get the result on merit, paid Venezia general manager Giuseppe Pagliara €250,000 to throw the game.
The scheme quickly unravelled when he was caught with the cash in his car.
The Italian Football Federation reacted immediately, stripping Genoa of the Serie B title and, instead of promoting them to Serie A, demoting them straight to Serie C1.
Juventus – 2004/05 and 2005/06
Perhaps the most famous case of all came with the Calciopoli scandal, when Juventus were found guilty of influencing referee appointments over an extended period.
The scandal rocked Italian football and remains one of the sport’s biggest controversies in the modern era.
As part of the punishment, club general manager Luciano Moggi received a lifetime ban from football.
Juventus were relegated to Serie B and stripped of two Serie A titles.
Although the Turin club have always denied wrongdoing and still includes those titles in their own unofficial count, Inter Milan was awarded the 2005/06 Scudetto.
Juventus also lost a number of key star players in the aftermath of the scandal.
2025 AFCON award winners updated
Earlier, YEN.com.gh also reported on the full award winners from the 2025 AFCON, which features Senegal's Sadio Mane.
With his country stripped of the title, a player of the competition accolade would mean little for the former Liverpool winger.
Proofreading by Bruce Douglas, copy editor at YEN.com.gh.
Source: YEN.com.gh
