The president of Mauritania allegedly ordered a 63rd-minute soccer shootout because he was bored

You know those Buffalo Wild Wings commercials where the people in the bar don’t want the game on TV to end, so they MAKE it go to overtime? This is like that, only real, and the opposite. Via the Guardian:

The Mauritanian federation has been forced to deny that the country’s president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, ordered a penalty shootout in the 63rd minute of the Super Cup final out of boredom.

Abdel Aziz was in attendance to watch the final between FC Tevragh-Zeina and ACS Ksar last weekend which was abruptly called to a halt with the score level at 1-1, to the astonishment of the rest of the crowd, before the referee signalled for a shootout.

Mauritianian officials have already released a statement vaguely claiming that “organizational issues” caused the abrupt ending, but who’s ever heard of a game going straight to overtime? Plenty of games are cut short because of weather, fights, and horrid injuries, but they usually don’t sneak in a few quick PKs.

Anyway, if President Abdel Aziz did indeed decide to wrap it up, I don’t know why anyone’s denying it. If the game was THAT boring, it seems like he did everyone a favor, and I can think of a lot of fanbases who would appreciate that kind of influence