Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) secretary-general, Dr Mohammed Sanusi has admitted that global body, FIFA, responded to the country’s petition against DR Congo, but added that officials in Abuja were not satisfied with the decision.
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Sports247 reports that Sanusi did not categorically state when they got FIFA’s response nor reveal their exact reaction to the NFF’s protest against the nationality eligibility of some DR Congo’s players, but he said the Nigerian body has launched an appeal.
Without providing details of the development, Sanusi added that ‘the NFF has already commenced the process of appealing the FIFA Disciplinary Committee’s decision to reject Nigeria’s petition’ against The Leopards.
NFF’s petition was based on accusations that DRC ‘fraudulently gained nationality documents’ to make some players born abroad eligible for their team at the 2026 FIFA World Cup Playoff competition.
DR Congo subsequently used the players against Nigeria during the African play-off final in Rabat, Morocco on November 16th, 2025, which The Leopards won 4-3 via penalties’ shot-out after a 1-1 draw after extra time.
Reports emerged soon after that the NFF had protested to FIFA and sought a reversal of the result in Nigeria’s favour but, after several months of waiting, Sanusi has finally come out to confirm that a verdict has been received.
“We have received the decision of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee on our petition, but we are not satisfied with the decision, which rejected our petition.
“I want to assure Nigerians that the NFF has immediately commenced the process of appealing the decision,” Sanusi reiterated.
However, independent checks by Sports247 revealed that the NFF’s petition was dismissed on technical ground due to a late submission that was not backed up with a protest fee.
The NFF did not make any verbal protest to the match commissioner right after the game, and they eventually submitted a perition almost two weeks later, instead of under 24 hours.
Sports247 gathered further that, when the petition was eventually submitted belatedly, it was not backed up with the required 1,000 Swiss francs protest fee stipulated in FIFA’s statutes, hence the global body’s decision not to look into the purported protest let alone deliberate over it.
Dramatically, though, Sanusi is still talking about making an apeal, with less than two weeks remaining before the 2026 FIFA World Cup intercontinental play-off in Mexico, which the NFF want to stop DR Congo from attending and for the Super Eagles to replace them.
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