How Nigeria Qualified For CAF Africa Playoffs From The Most Competitive Group

I person been disquieted astir the skewed narratives astir Nigeria’s Super Eagles qualification for the FIFA World Cup Africa playoff tourney successful Morocco adjacent month.

Most of these ignorant statements and misinformation person travel from African journalists and Nigerians themselves much than foreigners.

Let’s accidental that the fans are not alert of the FIFA / CAF contention rules, 1 would expect Nigerian journalists to support their state and amended the fans and the public. But, galore are utilizing Nigeria to workplace engagements connected societal media successful ignorance.

First of all, Nigeria qualified for the playoffs due to the fact that the Super Eagles, and Cameroon, were successful the much competitory groups of the qualifying rounds.

The occupation started from Group E. Due to Eritrea’s withdrawal from the qualifiers, each the teams successful that radical played lone 8 matches alternatively of 10 for each different 9 groups.

CAF/FIFA past decided successful March 2025 – for fairness and equilibrium – to region 2 matches from each Group runner-ups successful the last information for the FOUR champion teams for the playoffs spot.

All the runner-up teams mislaid the points they gained from the weakest squad successful their groups. This does not impact the teams that triumph their group.

In Group D, Cameroon bushed Cape Verde 4-1 astatine location and past drew doubly with Angola and Eswatini away.

In Group F, some apical teams Ivory Coast and Gabon bushed Seychelles location and away.

In Group G, some Algeria and Uganda took maximum 6 points from the bottommost squad Somalia but Uganda mislaid 6 points to Algeria location and away.

In Group I, Madagascar bushed bottommost teams. Chad, Comoros, and Central Africa Republic location and away, taking 18 points. But, past mislaid 6 points to Group winner, Ghana, location and away.

In Group C, the archetypal 2 teams (South Africa and Nigeria) couldn’t bushed the bottommost squad (Zimbabwe) whereas successful Group A, Burkina Faso bushed Djibouti location and away.

Zimbabwe took 6 points from some Nigeria and RSA, portion successful Group A, Djibouti surrendered 12 points to Egypt and Burkina Faso.

At the extremity of the day, CAF/FIFA chose the fairest mode to cipher the aggregate points for the 4 selected teams truthful arsenic not to disadvantage teams successful tougher groups.

The team’s enactment for the playoffs yet came down to however the runner up squad performed against the Group winner.

In Group A, Burkina Faso finished 5 points down Egypt.

In Group B, DR Congo, finished 2 points down Senegal.

In Group C, Nigeria and Benin finished lone a constituent down South Africa.

In Group D, Cameroon finished 4 points down Cape Verde.

In Group E, Niger ended the qualifiers 9 points down Morocco.

In Group F, Gabon finished lone a constituent down Ivory Coast.

In Group G, Uganda was 7 points down Algeria astatine the extremity of the qualifiers.

In Group H, Namibia ended the qualifiers with a whopping 13 points down radical victor Tunisia

In Group I, Madagascar finished 6 points down Ghana.

The selected teams Gabon (-1), Nigeria (-1), DR Congo (-2) and Cameroon (-4) were the closest to their respective radical winners.

However, successful fairness, the 4 teams selected for the CAF playoffs are the teams that performed champion against the stronger and amended teams successful their respective groups.

There are galore things CAF could person done amended to amended fairness for the adjacent FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

Firstly, CAF could bash amended with the timing of the past circular of matches, and instrumentality into information the imaginable permutations crossed each groups into the scheduling plan.

Secondly, widen the cookware by selecting the apical 8 retired of 9 runners-up teams for the playoffs alternatively of 4 teams.

~ Omogbeja is an award-winning African sports writer and integer media leader.