Hendrix Oliomogbe
Piqued by the annulment of Edo Queens’ penalty-shootout victory over Ghana’s Ampem Darkoa Ladies by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in the WAFU-B final, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), has appealed the verdict of the continental football body, which ordered that the final must resume from extra time.
In its appeal dated Tuesday, September 29, 2026 through the Deputy General Secretary, Dr. Emmanuel Edem Ikpeme, NFF is demanding that CAF should reconsider its annulment of the outcome of the match.
In the final played on September 5 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Fasso, Edo Queens’ of Nigeria defeated the hard fighting Ghanaian champions, Ampem Darkoa Ladies, 4-1 in the penalty shootout ordered by the referee, after the match ended 2-2 during regulation time.
The victory, which also earned the victorious Nigerians, the WAFU-B qualification ticket for the CAF Women’s Champions League is however at risk as the two warring teams may return to the pitch to settle the final from extra time as a result of the officiating error.
In their petition, the Ghanaian losers protested their defeat on the ground that CAF's regulations require extra time before penalties, a complaint which the football body upheld, ruling that the match should resume from the 2-2 scoreline for two 15-minute periods of extra time.
While conceding that the regulation actually requires extra time, the NFF’s challenge which centres on who should bear the consequences of the error, however insisted that the victorious Edo Queens neither caused the omission nor asked officials to proceed directly to penalties.
“Edo Queens neither elected nor requested that extra time be dispensed with,” the NFF argued, stressing that the Nigerian players complied with the referee’s instructions.
The federation further stated: “The fact that Edo Queens ultimately won the shoot-out cannot retrospectively convert its compliance with the referee’s instruction into responsibility for the regulatory breach.”
The NFF is therefore asking CAF’s Appeals Committee to distinguish between the existence of a regulatory irregularity and the remedy that should follow it, arguing that cancellation of a completed shoot-out must have a specific regulatory foundation and be proportionate to the breach.
CAF’s ruling, meanwhile, rests on the position that extra time was mandatory and that the penalty shoot-out consequently occurred before the prescribed stage of the match.
The case now raises a wider regulatory question for African club football: where neither team causes a procedural error by match officials, should the sporting outcome already produced on the field automatically be discarded?
The NFF has consequently asked CAF to restore the original result, while the Appeals Committee considers the competing arguments over the rules, responsibility and appropriate remedy.
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