National Sports Commission still holds on to hope that the Super Eagles can still make World Cup

NIGERIAN sports officials have refused to give up hope of the Super Eagles participating in this year's World cup despite global footballing body Fifa publishing the details of its forthcoming inter-continental play-offs with DR Congo listed as Africa's representative.

In November last year, the Leopards of DR Congo beat the Super Eagles of Nigeria 4-3 on penalties in the final of the African World Cup playoff at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat after playing a 1-1 draw. With this victory, the Congolese qualified to represent Africa in Fifa's inter-continental play-off taking place later this month in Mexico, from where two teams will qualify for the World Cup.

However, the  Football Federation (NFF) wrote to Fifa alleging that the Democratic Republic of Congo breached its rules by fielding ineligible players in the play-offs. A petition was sent to Fifa's headquarters in Zurich, requesting that the Congolese be disqualified for fielding ineligible players and although Fifa has not formally responded, it has listed DR Congo as Africa's representative in the tournament.

Mallam Shehu Dikko, the chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC), however, has announced that he has not given up hope of returning to the qualification race despite recent developments that appeared to favour the Congolese. After DR Congo was listed as one of the six teams expected to compete for the final two places at the expanded tournament, observers assumed that Fifa had already rejected Nigeria’s protest.

However, Mallam Dikko said he believes that the listing of DR Congo does not mean that Fifa has already made a final decision on Nigeria's complaint. Fifa is yet to formally respond to the NFF, saying it has considered and rejected its petition.

It had been expected that Fifa would refer the petition to its disciplinary committee, who would then meet and issue a formal ruling on the matter. Nigeria's NFF was hoping to get a ruling in its favour there and even if it did not, the federation was planning to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) before the play-offs which take place between March 26 and 31.

NFF and NSC officials hinged their hopes on Fifa's recent sanctions against the Football Association of Malaysia, which was found guilty of fielding seven ineligible naturalised players for the national team. Fifa's ruling on the matter was upheld by Cas, which asked the Malaysian federation to pay a hefty fine of $448,000, while each implicated players  faced an individual fine of 2,000 Swiss francs.

On March 5 this year, Cas confirmed the falsification of eligibility documents for the naturalized players. On September 26 last year, Fifa's disciplinary committee determined that Malaysia had submitted forged or invalid naturalisation documents for seven foreign-born players, which is similar to the claim Nigeria is making against DR Congo.