NFF opens fact-finding inquiry after Nigeria’s Women’s AFCON setback

The Nigeria Football Federation has established a fact-finding committee to examine what it describes as the country’s poor run in international competitions. The review will focus particularly on the Super Falcons’ failure to qualify for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup, a setback that ends Nigeria’s ever-present record at the tournament.

The Super Falcons entered the ongoing 14th edition of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco as ten-time champions and holders of the title. Their campaign ended in the quarter-finals. They then lost 2-1 to South Africa in a playoff that offered a route into the Inter-Confederations Playoffs scheduled for later this year.

That defeat confirmed Nigeria’s absence from the 2027 Women’s World Cup finals in Brazil. The Super Falcons had appeared at every edition since the competition began in 1991. Their run included the status of Africa’s most successful women’s national team, built on ten continental titles and repeated World Cup participation.

The failure is not limited to the senior women’s team. Nigeria’s Flying Eagles also missed out on the 2027 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations after losing 4-1 to Burkina Faso’s Young Stallions in the final of the WAFU B U-20 Championship. That result removed another pathway for a Nigerian national team to compete at a major continental tournament.

Former NFF general secretary Ambassador Fanny Amun, MON, will chair the committee. Its members are former Nigeria Under-20 coach and Nigeria Football Coaches Association president Ladan Bosso, former Super Falcons captain and multiple Women’s AFCON winner Desire Oparanozie, former Super Eagles captain and Africa Cup of Nations winner Mutiu Adepoju, and former FIFA referee Dr Alex Mana. Mohammed Nasiru Sa’idu, chairman of the Sokoto State Football Association, will act as secretary.

The committee’s broad remit gives it scope to examine more than one result or one age group. The Falcons’ quarter-final elimination and playoff loss represent the most damaging outcome, because they have kept Nigeria out of a World Cup for the first time. The Flying Eagles’ failure adds a second continental qualification setback and places the development pathway within the federation’s review.

Nigeria’s men’s senior team provide a contrasting picture in the available competition data. The Super Eagles are listed in first place in the Africa Cup of Nations 2025 standings, with nine points from three matches, three wins, no draws and no defeats. They have scored eight goals and conceded four. That record shows that the federation’s concerns cover a wider national-team picture but do not describe the current competitive position of every Nigerian side in the same way.

The recent Super Eagles sequence also contains mixed results rather than an uninterrupted decline: a 2-1 defeat away to Portugal, a 2-2 draw away to Poland, a 3-0 win against Jamaica, a 2-0 victory over Zimbabwe and a 2-2 draw away to Jordan. Against that backdrop, the committee’s work will have to distinguish between the Falcons’ historic qualification failure, the Flying Eagles’ youth-level setback and the men’s team’s stronger Africa Cup of Nations record.

The findings could give the NFF a formal basis for assessing national-team preparation, competition performance and the transition from youth football to senior squads, although the federation has not announced conclusions or remedies. For now, the immediate facts are the end of the Falcons’ World Cup sequence and the Flying Eagles’ missed qualification opportunity. The committee is expected to investigate those setbacks while the Inter-Confederations Playoffs take place later this year, without Nigeria in contention for a place through that route.