The Nigeria football governing body, NFF has admitted to an error in its counting of Super Eagles Captain, Ahmed Musa’s appearance record.
The federation said the world football governing body, FIFA was right in its counting of Ahmed Musa’s appearance for Nigeria. The NFF earlier said the Super Eagles captain had 100 caps for the Eagles but FIFA said he had 98 caps for the national team after featuring in Nigeria vs Cape Verde 2022 World Cup qualifier.
NFF in a statement on Wednesday said it deferred to FIFA’s record of 98 caps for Super Eagles’ captain Ahmed Musa, after the nullification of two of the matches he played.
“We defer to FIFA in this regard, so Ahmed Musa has 98 caps. If he features, as expected, in the home-and-away matches against the Central African Republic in October, he will clock the tally of 100 and the celebrations will follow in full flow,” NFF’s Director of Communications, Ademola Olajire.
FIFA said that Musa’s appearances in the friendly against Togo in June 2017 and the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 qualifier against Algeria in Constantine in November 2017 did not count.
The match against Togo was void as both countries made more than the regular number of changes in the game, while the World Cup qualifier against Algeria was taken off the data system because Nigeria fielded an ineligible player and the result was overturned, awarding the game to Algeria, even as Nigeria had already picked the World Cup ticket before the tie.