{"id":21309,"date":"2025-12-18T11:41:47","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T09:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/nigeria-submits-petition-to-fifa-over-drc-player-eligibility\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:32:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:32:24","slug":"nigeria-submits-petition-to-fifa-over-drc-player-eligibility","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/nigeria-submits-petition-to-fifa-over-drc-player-eligibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria submits petition to FIFA over DRC player eligibility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) has lodged a formal petition with FIFA, alleging that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) fielded ineligible players during their African World Cup qualification play-off.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>DRC defeated Nigeria on penalties last month, keeping their hopes alive of reaching next year\u2019s tournament in North America. They are now set to compete in an inter-confederation playoff in March, where six teams will vie for two spots at the expanded 48-team finals.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>According to the NFF, several dual-nationality players were cleared to play for DRC without meeting the required eligibility criteria. DRC\u2019s football federation has rejected the allegations.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The 2026 FIFA World Cup is scheduled to take place across the United States, Canada, and Mexico from June 11 to 19 July 19,2026.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21310,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-21309","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) has lodged a formal petition with FIFA","published_date":"2025-12-18 13:40:32","news_description":"Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) has lodged a formal petition with FIFA","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25029,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21309\/revisions\/25029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=21309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}