AFCON 2025: Herve Renard Explains Why Moroccan Ballboys Stole Mendy’s Towel
- Hervé Renard says the towel incident in the AFCON 2025 final was about more than mischief
- Moroccan ball boys tried to stop Senegal’s reserve goalkeeper from delivering Édouard Mendy’s towel
- CAF fined the Royal Moroccan Football Federation $200,000 over the episode
One of the most surreal moments of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final came not from a goal or a tackle, but from a towel.
During Senegal’s 1-0 extra-time win over Morocco on January 14, Moroccan ball boys repeatedly tried to stop Senegal’s second-choice goalkeeper Yehvann Diouf from bringing a towel to Édouard Mendy.
Source: UGC
For long stretches, Diouf was seen shielding the towel, chased and even dragged to the ground as ball boys and Moroccan players closed in.
Morocco midfielder Ismael Saibari was among those involved, trying to block Diouf’s path as what looked like playground chaos quickly turned into a flashpoint during a tense final.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) later punished the Royal Moroccan Football Federation with a $200,000 fine, calling the conduct unacceptable.
Yet the question lingered. Why was a simple towel treated like a prized object?
Herve Renard explains towel incident
Former AFCON-winning coach Hervé Renard, now in charge of Saudi Arabia national football team, offered his own explanation.
Source: Getty Images
Speaking about the incident to RMC Sport, Renard suggested it should be viewed through a cultural lens rather than dismissed as childish behaviour.
“The towel, it has something about it. If someone wanted to remove it, it was to disrupt… There’s something behind it. Was the towel blessed? That’s what I mean. These are beliefs. They are important in Africa too. It’s not just about taking a towel, there’s something else behind it,” he said.
Renard, who won the AFCON with Zambia in 2012 and Ivory Coast in 2015, argued that outsiders often fail to grasp how symbolism and belief can influence behaviour during African football matches.
“People who don’t know Africa can’t understand. Afterwards, there might be nothing on that towel, I wasn’t inside to experience it. But there was certainly a reason. Or perhaps it was to resist. I don’t know the meaning, I’m simply trying to put myself back in a context I’ve already experienced in Africa. It’s a continent with its own particularities.”
To Renard, the towel was not just fabric. It may have been seen as a psychological tool, something linked to ritual or luck.
Senegal’s reserve goalie Diouf reacts
From the pitch, the episode felt just as strange. Diouf later described the scenes as “totally surreal” after returning from the tournament.
The Senegal reserve goalkeeper revealed that the Teranga Lions camp had already noticed similar behaviour earlier in the competition against Nigeria.
“We had already seen in the previous match that they were having fun stealing the Nigerian goalkeeper’s towels. Why? We don’t know, just like us. But they were doing it for fun. We had been warned about it,” Diouf said.
His comments suggest the ball boys’ actions were not entirely spontaneous, but part of a pattern noticed by teams before the final.
Morocco star apologises to Mendy after towel saga
Earlier, Legit.ng reported that hours after the AFCON final, PSV midfielder Ismael Saibari personally visited Senegal’s team hotel to apologise to Mendy over his role in the incident.
The meeting, captured on video, was widely praised as a sincere gesture aimed at easing tensions and restoring respect between the two camps.
Source: Legit.ng
