The CAF Interclub Competitions and Management of the Club Licensing System Committee has awarded the unplayed Confederation Cup  second leg semi-final fixture between RS Berkane and USM Alger to Morocco’s RS Berkane.

The same decision was taken on the unplayed first leg match in Algeria. Thus, without having to kick the ball, RS Berkane moved to the final matches, technically with a 6-0 aggregate, the highest semi-final scorelines since the competition began 20 years ago.

According to  the CAF Inter-clubs committee, the case  against Algeria’s USM Alger has been passed to the Disciplinary Board of CAF for possible additional sanctions.

Spanish coach Juan Carlos Garrido has announced his resignation from coaching Algerian club USM Alger, Moroccan channel Medi1 TV reported. Garrido made the announcement in an exclusive statement to the channel.

Garrido’s decision comes after the African Football Confederation’s club committee announced the elimination of USM Alger from the CAF Confederation Cup. 

The Algerian team decided to withdraw from the second leg game of the CAF Confederation Cup semi-final against Morocco’s RS Berkane last week.

As a result, CAF penalized USM Alger with a forfeit, awarding RS Berkane a 3-0 victory by default and securing their place in the tournament’s final against Egyptian club Zamalek.

This comes in the wake of a controversy that began when Algerian authorities confiscated RS Berkane’s equipment after they landed in Algiers for the first leg of their semi-final match against USM Alger. 

The Algerian authorities notably confiscated the Moroccan club’s jerseys for featuring the full Moroccan map with the Western Sahara region. 

Despite efforts by CAF to mediate the issue and assert the legitimacy of RS Berkane’s jerseys, the Algerian authorities refused to return the confiscated items.

This resulted in the match’s abandonment and CAF declaring RS Berkane winners of the first leg with a 3-0 scoreline.

In the subsequent second leg, scheduled to take place in Morocco, USM Alger opted to withdraw from the match, further fueling the controversy. 

CAF subsequently penalized USM Alger with a forfeit, awarding RS Berkane a 3-0 victory and eliminating the Algerian team from the tournament.

Medi1 TV reported Garrido as indicating that he had no direct involvement in the jersey controversy and that his primary concern was solely focused on football matters. 

The report added that the coach had expressed disapproval of the events surrounding the jersey dispute and emphasized his dedication to the game and his discomfort with being embroiled in off-field controversies.

-Morocco World News

With the last minute withdrawal of USM Alger from the second leg match of the CAF Confederation Cup semi-final against Morocco’s RS Berkane, the Algerian club and the federation will be expecting further sanctions from CAF.

The Algerian team arrived Morocco on Friday for the Sunday scheduled match.

But on match day, first they failed to show up for the traditional warm-up preceding a match and eventually refused to play the match ostensibly on the instruction of the Algerian football federation.

The bone of contention is the outline Morocco map on the RS Berkane jerseys.

According to CAF regulations, “a withdrawal declared by a team after having qualified for the quarter-final and semi-final matches entails, in addition to the loss of the right of entry, a fine of fifty thousand (50,000) US dollars,”

In addition: “any team withdrawing from the competition after the calendar has been established will be prohibited from participating in all CAF interclub competitions for the next two editions following the edition of its withdrawal.”

Furthermore the regulations state: “in the event of a team’s withdrawal, its federation will be responsible for the financial and other consequences to be determined by the Interclub Commission and/or the CAF disciplinary jury”.