Timeline of Despair: Negligence and the Super Eagles’ 11th World Cup Heartbreak

By Emmanuel Kwada

The penalty shoot-out defeat to the Democratic Republic of Congo in Rabat last week was not just another elimination. It was the 11th time Nigeria has failed to reach a FIFA World Cup (1962, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 2006, 2022, 2026) and the second in succession.

Six qualifications since the debut in 1994 have given unforgettable moments, but the manner of this latest collapse; a training boycott over unpaid bonuses just 48 hours before the biggest match in four years has stripped away the last excuses.

Nigerians are no longer merely disappointed; they are furious, and the target of that fury is clear: the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).

Journalist Patrick Iwelunmor put it most starkly in his September 2025 Modern Ghana article: “The problem is not Eric Chelle. The problem is the Nigeria Football Federation that has institutionalised disrespect, mismanagement, and incompetence.”

Former Sports Minister Solomon Dalung went further on Monday, speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria the day after the DR Congo defeat: Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup is “the direct consequence of longstanding corruption, impunity and institutional hypocrisy within the system.”

He stressed that the problems undermining the country’s football development date back decades and have remained largely unaddressed because of entrenched interests.

The Paradox: Champions in Europe, Chaos in Green-White-Green

In the same week Nigeria crashed out, Victor Osimhen was celebrating a league-and-cup double with Galatasaray after scoring 37 goals.

Ademola Lookman is Atalanta’s talisman, Victor Boniface is terrorising Bundesliga defences, and Premier League Nigerians Ola Aina, Wilfred Ndidi, Alex Iwobi, Calvin Bassey and others; are starting every weekend for their clubs.

These are €80-100 million assets who win titles and play Champions League knockout rounds. Yet when they pull on the Super Eagles shirt they look disjointed, demotivated, and sometimes openly mutinous.

I begged to come to camp injured and was told to stay home, then accused of not being committed. I have lost every respect for Nigerian football officials.

The reason is brutally simple: European clubs treat them as prized professionals; the NFF treats them as disposable volunteers in a corrupt, negligent, politically infested system.

Corruption – Where the Money Actually Goes

Billions of naira and millions of dollars disappear long before they reach the pitch.

1. November 2024 petition to President Tinubu: more than ₦20 billion allegedly misappropriated, including ₦17 billion released specifically for 2026 World Cup qualification and outstanding salaries.
2. US$4 million CAF prize money from the 2023 AFCON final appearance – vanished.
3. Separate Women’s World Cup grants (US$1.75 m + US$960 k) for the Super Falcons – unaccounted for.
4. House of Representatives probe (October-November 2025) into US$25 million FIFA/CAF grants since 2015, highlighted by the Birnin Kebbi Stadium scandal (US$1.2 m for a sub-standard facility while Kenya built a proper one for the same amount).

Just days before the DR Congo playoff, players led by captain William Troost-Ekong refused to train in Rabat until the NFF settled debts stretching back years. They eventually trained after “promises”, but the psychological damage was irreversible. Nigeria lost the shoot-out.

Negligence – Amateur Hour at the Highest Level

The NFF runs like a badly managed village cooperative rather than the custodian of Africa’s most talented football nation.

Coaches are hired and fired at whim and left unpaid for months or years (Peseiro, Labbadia, now Chelle). Stephen Keshi and Shuaibu Amodu, the last men to win AFCON titles for Nigeria, died feeling betrayed and underpaid.

Players arrive at camp to discover no kits, poor food, no medical staff, and sometimes no return tickets. Injured players are abandoned; Osimhen, Iwobi and others have spoken of returning to Europe carrying knocks picked up on national duty with zero NFF follow-up.

The direct consequence of longstanding corruption, impunity and institutional hypocrisy within the system.

There is zero continuity. European federations have technical directors who implement one philosophy from U-15 to senior level. Nigeria changes the entire technical blueprint every 18–24 months, usually after a court injunction or political horse-trading.

Politics and Nepotism – “This Boy Belongs to My Oga”

Football administration is an extension of Nigeria’s patronage system.

Governors, ministers and “stakeholders” telephone coaches to demand places for “their” players regardless of form. Finidi George admitted in 2024 he could not drop certain senior players because they “belong to big men”.

NFF presidential elections are settled in courtrooms, not congresses. FIFA has threatened bans for government interference in 2010, 2014 and 2021.

The clearest proof of how politics sabotages reform comes from Solomon Dalung himself. When he became Minister in November 2015, many dismissed his simple appearance as inexperience.

In reality he had followed Nigerian sports for years. His first real insight came in 2002 at AFCON in Mali, where he watched Sunday Oliseh clash with officials over arbitrary bonus cuts and saw government delegates, including himself, stranded without estacode until the embassy intervened.

Nigerian fans after Super Eagle lost to DRC Congo 4:3 in penalty shoot out for FIFA World Cup qualifier 2026#NGACOD #SuperEagles pic.twitter.com/tPqprs2pQC pic.twitter.com/8r0oyHRmXK

— Ja Macalder (@Ja_Macalder) November 17, 2025

An elderly cleaner later told him: “In sports we work harder for failure than for success,” explaining that budgets are inflated to the final, but administrators pocket more when the team exits early because unspent funds are never accounted for.

Dalung constituted a technical committee led by Col. Abdulmumuni that included former NFA chairmen, secretaries, ex-internationals, coaches, private sector and government representatives.

After months of work the committee identified corruption, unpaid allowances, nepotism, impunity and lack of transparency as the main obstacles. Its boldest recommendation: Nigeria should voluntarily withdraw from international football for six months and ask FIFA to install a normalisation committee to overhaul governance.

The ministry accepted the proposal and sent it to President Buhari and FIFA. But when Buhari fell ill and travelled abroad for treatment, the presidency unilaterally wrote to FIFA disowning the report without consulting Dalung.

He still calls that moment “a significant victory for corruption and impunity.” The consequences, he says, are what we see today: repeated World Cup qualification failure since 2018.

The Motivation Vacuum

European clubs pay salaries on the 28th, fly private jets when needed, world-class medical care, bonuses the same week. The Super Eagles pay six months late – if ever.

Victor Osimhen’s 2024 Instagram Live: “I begged to come to camp injured and was told to stay home, then accused of not being committed. I have lost every respect for Nigerian football officials.”

John Obi Mikel, Ahmed Musa, Asisat Oshoala, Randy Waldrum (unpaid for two years) all say the same thing: you bleed for your club because your club values you; you bleed for Nigeria and get insulted, unpaid, and discarded.

The Super Falcons protested on the streets of Australia in 2023 over bonuses unpaid since 2021.

When players know the money meant to prepare them has already been stolen and they will be blamed anyway, the fire dies. You see it in the half-hearted pressing, needless red cards, and absence of leadership they never show in Europe.

Same Script, Different Year. Script unchanged since Angola 2006.

Meanwhile Osimhen scores hat-tricks with a smile in Istanbul, Lookman tears apart Serie A, Boniface bullies centre-backs in Leverkusen – because their clubs treat them like assets, not liabilities.

Until the NFF is forced to become a transparent, professional, politically insulated body that pays people on time and invests in grassroots instead of private pockets, Nigeria will keep producing individual European champions and collective African failures.

The talent has never been the problem. The system has always been the problem. And until the system is dismantled and rebuilt, the World Cup will remain something Nigerians watch on television while wondering what might have been.

Read Also: Weekly Roundup: Doctors’ 19 complaints against FG