The controversial referee manages the Egypt vs. Senegal match

The Confederation of African Football’s arbitration committee appointed Gabonese Pierre Ghislain Acho to officiate Egypt’s match against Senegal in the semi-finals of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

The match will take place at Ibn Battuta Stadium in Tangier, on Wednesday, at five o’clock in the evening.

CAF insistence

Many African teams complained about Gabonese Acho, 33 years old, in previous official matches.

The ruling sparked controversy in the Greens’ last confrontation for the 35th edition of Cannes, against Nigeria, after he was assigned to supervise video technology.

Acho overlooked the shot of the Nigerian defender touching the ball with his hand after Fares Shaybi’s shot in the first half, and refused to summon his Senegalese colleague Issa Sy to review the shot.

The same incident was repeated twice in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, during the matches between Burkina Faso and Angola.

On the other hand, the Senegalese were pessimistic when the African Union announced that they had chosen Acho to manage their match against Egypt, as the local press described him as a nightmare.

The reason is also due to his disastrous performance in the decisive match during the Ivory Coast tournament last year, which witnessed the elimination of the Teranga Lions by the host country in the round of 16 after resorting to penalty kicks (5-4).

The Elephants team then won a penalty kick in the 82nd minute of the match, after returning to video technology, even though striker Nicolas Pepe was in an offside position the moment he received the ball and before being obstructed by goalkeeper Edward Cisse.

Ismaila Sarr also did not prevent a penalty kick despite being blocked by Ivorian defender Odilon Kosounou in the 55th minute of the match.

CAF then excluded the match’s refereeing team, led by Acho, from the competition, after acknowledging the presence of refereeing errors.

The Egyptians, in turn, expressed their fear in the comments on the “CAF” post, following the nomination of the refereeing team for their match against Senegal.

Acho was present in two matches played by the Pharaohs team during the current edition.

The Gabonese refereeed Egypt’s match against Benin in the eighth-final from inside the field, while he supervised the video technology against Angola for the group stage.