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INT
AFCON 2025
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Former Ivory Coast AFCON-winning head coach weighed in on the towel incident involving Stanley Nwabali and Edouard Mendy.
Former AFCON-winning coach Herve Renard has weighed in on the goalkeeper-towel fiasco at the Cup of Nations, leaning into the voodoo rhetoric, saying that there was something behind it.
AFCON, towels and voodoo
Morocco hosted an incredible AFCON tournament, especially in terms of infrastructure and organisation. However, most of that goodwill waned in the later stages of the competition when they were embroiled in multiple refereeing controversies and the unsportsmanlike attitude of their officials and fans, underscored by the towel incidents.
Super Eagles goalkeeper Stanley Nwabali and Senegal’s Edouard Mendy were the main victims of the despicable antics from Moroccan fans, officials and players — which have attracted sanctions from CAF — as they had their face and glove towels forcefully taken away by loyalists of the host nation in the semi-finals and final of the AFCON.
The incident remains a controversy, with reports from the Moroccan side claiming that the towels used by the Western African goalkeepers have been charmed, and they attempted to remove them to take away the advantage.
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What Renard said
Renard, who led Zambia and the Ivory Coast to AFCON titles, discussed the controversy in a recent interview, revealing that he had witnessed something similar.
“The towel is something too long to explain, but it’s an object that has meaning, that’s all,” he said. So if someone wanted to remove it, it was to disrupt things, but people in Europe don’t understand that there’s something behind it.
“Was the towel ‘blessed’? (Laughs) Well, these are beliefs—everyone believes in what they want. Those who don’t know Africa can’t understand, and Moroccans don’t let themselves be pushed around.
“I don’t know if it happened or not, but I’ve already lived through this kind of context on this continent! The king of this world silences the vipers.”