There is a particular kind of silence that follows a football match—not the empty-stadium hush after the final whistle, but the guarded quiet of lawyers leaving a room. That silence hung over Thursday’s Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing concerning the AFCON 2025 final between Morocco and Senegal. Neither delegation offered a public account of what took place inside the room. The Moroccan side, according to Hesport, simply left without commenting, offering no indication of whether its arguments had been well received or whether the panel had asked difficult questions. The Senegalese side was only slightly more forthcoming. Abdoulaye Sow,…

There was a time, not very long ago, when a photograph could settle an argument. If someone claimed the sky was green, a single picture of blue sky ended the discussion. That instinct—trusting our eyes, trusting a recorded moment—feels like a relic now. I remember my grandmother keeping a yellowed school photo in her wallet, pulling it out to prove a story about her childhood. She never questioned that the photo was true. It had to be true: it showed her sister laughing, a real morning in 1948. Today, that same photograph could be altered in seconds, or never have…