Is walking out of pitch the new norm in African football?

In what is becoming a new trend of displaying grievances or disagreement with the referee’s decision, players seem to be adapting the precedent set by Senegal when they walked out of the AFCON final against Morocco last month, forcing the match to stop for about 14 minutes before it resumed.

Barely a month later, the same highest form of indiscipline which, if not handled carefully by CAF, will ruin the game of football.

Al Masry players walked off the pitch in their Confederation Cup Group D match on Sunday played at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg.

The Egyptian side protested the 1st-half penalty awarded to the hosts, an incident which halted the game for about seven minutes before resuming with the home team converting the spot kick and eventually winning 2-1, to qualify for the quarter-finals.

Perhaps what was perceived by many as a lenient punishment by the CAF disciplinary committee of 5 match suspensions to Senegalese coach Pape Thiaw, for ordering his players to walk off the pitch is moving African football on a dangerous trajectory.

Unless CAF moves with speed and redeems itself, more such indisciplined cases of players abandoning or walking out of pitches will be part of the African game.

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