{"id":7354,"date":"2026-03-18T23:29:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T22:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pillartoday.ng\/?p=7354"},"modified":"2026-03-18T23:29:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T22:29:44","slug":"nff-appeals-fifas-decision-on-petition-against-dr-congo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"pillartoday.com.ng\/?p=7354","title":{"rendered":"NFF Appeals FIFA\u2019s Decision on Petition Against DR Congo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By<strong> Dianabasi Effion<\/strong>g<\/p>\n<p>The General Secretary, Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), says the appeal process on the decision of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee, which rejected Nigeria&#8217;s petition against the Democratic Republic of Congo on the eligibility of some players used by that country in a 2026 FIFA World Cup Playoff match against Nigeria on Nov.16, 2025, in Rabat, Morocco, has begun.<\/p>\n<p>He said the NFF had received FIFA&#8217;s verdict, adding that it was not satisfied with the decision, which rejected Nigeria&#8217;s petition.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to assure Nigerians that the NFF has immediately commenced the process of appealing the decision,&#8221; Sanusi said.<\/p>\n<p>The NFF had presented a petition to the world football-governing body, FIFA, days after the said match, based on alleged fraud in the issuance of passports that qualified several players of the Democratic Republic of Congo for the Play-offs.<\/p>\n<p>The match, played at the Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan Stadium in Rabat, was the Final of the African Play-offs.<\/p>\n<p>The Democratic Republic of Congo won in a sudden-death penalty shootout, after both teams were tied at 1-1 following regulation and extra time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Dianabasi Effiong The General Secretary, Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), says the appeal process on the decision of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee, which rejected Nigeria&#8217;s petition against the Democratic Republic of Congo on the eligibility of some players used by that country in a 2026 FIFA World Cup Playoff match against Nigeria on Nov.16, 2025, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"pillartoday.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"pillartoday.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"pillartoday.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"pillartoday.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"pillartoday.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"pillartoday.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"pillartoday.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"pillartoday.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"pillartoday.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}