Chairman of the Advocacy for Nigeria Football Reform Initiative, Harrison Jalla, has criticised the Confederation of African Football (CAF) over its decision to annul Edo Queens’ victory at the WAFU B women’s tournament in Burkina Faso.
Edo Queens had defeated Ghana’s Ampem Darkoa Ladies 4-1 on penalties after the match ended 2-2 after 90 minutes.
However, the Ghana Football Association protested the result, arguing that the game should have gone into 30 minutes of extra time before penalties were taken.
CAF upheld the protest, ruling that going straight to penalties after regular time was against Articles 13.1 and 72.4 of the CAF Women’s Champions League regulations.
The decision has now drawn criticism from Jalla, who described it as another administrative problem for the continental football body.
Jalla questioned why the match officials allowed the game to go straight to penalties if the rules required extra time to be played first
He also challenged what the 54 CAF member associations were learning from the repeated concerns surrounding the organisation of competitions.
Jalla said CAF should take responsibility for their action and punish those responsible instead of allowing clubs and national teams to suffer for administrative mistake.
He concluded that Edo Queens should not be asked to replay the match and called on the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to make this position clear to CAF.
The dispute has added another talking point to the WAFU B women’s tournament, with attention now on how CAF and the NFF will handle the situation involving Edo Queens.
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