The dispute surrounding the final of CAN 2025 reaches a key stage on Thursday, when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS) hears submissions from Senegal, Morocco and the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
The case will be considered by a three-member panel chaired by French arbitrator Gerald Simon, alongside Italy’s Luigi Fumagalli and Germany’s Ulrich Haas. All three are law professors with extensive experience of sporting disputes and international arbitration.
Simon is professor emeritus at the University of Bourgogne-Franche-Comte and a recognised specialist in sports law. He previously headed the university’s Sports Law Laboratory, where his research included the regulatory powers of sports federations and the autonomy of the sporting movement.
He has been among the TAS’s arbitrators for more than two decades. In 2006, he was part of a TAS panel examining the dispute between Le Havre, FIFA, Newcastle and Charles N’Zogbia. That case concerned, among other issues, the consequences of the young French player’s move to Newcastle.
Fumagalli, a professor at the University of Milan and a lawyer, has also built a lengthy record at the TAS. The Italian has been a member of the tribunal for 24 years and regularly takes part in sports arbitration proceedings.
He has served as an appeal judge for Euroleague Basketball and was president of the second division of Italy’s anti-doping tribunal. In 2019, he chaired the TAS panel in the case involving Kazakhstan player Etzaz Hussain, FC Astana and FIFA.
Fumagalli has also sat on the TAS’s ad hoc panels at the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008, Sochi 2014 and Tokyo 2020. Most recently, he was involved in the panel for Milan-Cortina 2026.
Completing the panel is Haas, professor of civil law and civil procedure at the University of Zurich. His specialist areas include international civil procedure, arbitration and sports law.
The University of Zurich says Haas has taken part, either as president or as an arbitrator appointed by one of the parties, in more than 200 sports-related arbitration tribunals. Many of those cases were heard by TAS panels.
Among the notable disputes in which he has sat was the 2014 Fenerbahce-UEFA case, which concerned the sanctions imposed on the Turkish club in connection with the match-fixing investigation.
That trio will now examine the legal dispute arising from the CAN 2025 final, a case that has prompted differing interpretations of the relevant legal issues.