Chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Shehu Dikko has reaffirmed his confidence that Nigeria will obtain a favorable verdict in the ongoing eligibility dispute against the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Super Eagles lost 4-3 on penalities to DR Congo in the final 2026 FIFA World Cup African playoffs last November.
Following this defeat, the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, formally lodged a complaint with FIFA, challenging the eligibility of several Congolese players.
The crux of the NFF’s petition revolves around the DR Congo’s national laws, which generally restrict dual citizenship for adults.
The NFF raised concerns that certain DR Congo players, may hold European passports while representing their national team, potentially contravening Congolese legal statutes.
“It is what it is. I keep saying it, when we came in as a sports commission, already the World Cup issue was already virtually lost, remember when we spoke here, we have three points out of 12, but we pushed, worked with the NFF, with everybody, and we nearly made it,” Dikko told journalists after meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the State House on Thursday.
“We had a misfortune or penalties in the playoffs. We lost it, but we found out there are some breaches here and there, which we believe, even before we played the playoffs, those breaches, we noticed them and we already documented them.
“So ourselves and the NFF submitted to FIFA, what we feel were the breaches against the rules and regulations, which is also part of sports, it’s not being sore losers, it’s just what it is. So the relevant bodies of FIFA are dealing with it, and we are hoping, any moment, we will hear their decisions.
” But we are confident we have a good case. But I keep saying, we have put the World Cup behind us already. Whatever happens, it is what it is. But we are not looking at that, we are looking at how do you build for the next competitions, the next AFCON, the next WAFCON is next month.
“You can see how we pushed the performance at the last AFCON in Morocco. Everybody was happy about it. So the World Cup is a closed chapter, but yes, we have a pending legal issue to deal with. It’s not within our competence to do; our own is to say this is what we feel was the wrong thing that was done, and we leave it.
“Even FIFA, it’s not the FIFA deciding, there are independent bodies in FIFA who are independent of FIFA; disciplinary committee, ethics committee, are independent bodies of FIFA, they make their decision based on what they see on the rules and they won’t tell you, we are doing it tomorrow or next tomorrow, when they finish, they will tell the world. But we are confident that, yes, if it is legal issues, we have a good case. That’s why we submitted the case.”
