{"id":196554,"date":"2026-03-05T12:20:45","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T11:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/fifa-ends-super-eagles-2026-world-cup-dream-confirms-dr-congo-for-play-off"},"modified":"2026-03-05T12:20:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T11:20:45","slug":"fifa-ends-super-eagles-2026-world-cup-dream-confirms-dr-congo-for-play-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/fifa-ends-super-eagles-2026-world-cup-dream-confirms-dr-congo-for-play-off","title":{"rendered":"FIFA ends Super Eagles\u2019 2026 World Cup dream, confirms DR Congo for play-off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FIFA has ended the Super Eagles\u2019 dreams of playing at the 2026 World Cup, after confirming the final line-up for this month\u2019s inter-confederation play-off tournament.<\/p>\n<p>The world football governing body has picked DR Congo as Africa\u2019s representative.<\/p>\n<p>This was contained in an accreditation notice circulated to the media on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>In the notice, FIFA provided details of the tournament format and listed the six countries that would be involved.<\/p>\n<p>DR Congo\u2019s inclusion leaves no room for Nigeria, whose football federation had challenged the result of their defeat in the CAF play-offs in November 2025.<\/p>\n<p>The Nigeria Football Federation lodged a formal protest, alleging that DR Congo fielded ineligible players during the decisive tie, which ended 1-1 and went to penalties, where Nigeria lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FIFA has ended the Super Eagles\u2019 dreams of playing at the 2026 World Cup, after confirming the final line-up for this month\u2019s inter-confederation play-off tournament. The world football governing body has picked DR Congo as Africa\u2019s representative. This was contained in an accreditation notice circulated to the media on Wednesday. In the notice, FIFA provided [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":196553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>FIFA ends Super Eagles\u2019 2026 World Cup dream, confirms DR Congo for play-off - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/fifa-ends-super-eagles-2026-world-cup-dream-confirms-dr-congo-for-play-off\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FIFA ends Super Eagles\u2019 2026 World Cup dream, confirms DR Congo for play-off\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"FIFA has ended the Super Eagles\u2019 dreams of playing at the 2026 World Cup, after confirming the final line-up for this month\u2019s inter-confederation play-off tournament. The world football governing body has picked DR Congo as Africa\u2019s representative. This was contained in an accreditation notice circulated to the media on Wednesday. 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