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By Bunmi Ogunyale
Nigeria’s Super Eagles will battle Sao Tome and Principe as one of their Group A opponents in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying series.
Sao Tome and Principe were restored into the qualifiers after CAF Appeals Board threw out Mauritius from the pool following the successful appeal of the former.
The case has done a yo-yo with São Tomé and Príncipe winning on the field of play, Mauritius winning their case at the Disciplinary Board against the former for fielding a player who tested positive for COVID-19, and the Appeals Board now restoring São Tomé and Príncipe to the race and ejecting Mauritius.
Mauritius had protested to CAF that São Tomé and Príncipe player, Luis Leal Dos Anjos did not undergo the obligatory PCR test during their match on 24th March, 2022 in the frame of the AFCON 2023 qualifiers, but the Appeal Board ruled that “given that neither the CAF Disciplinary Code nor CAF’s COVID-19 protocols provide any sanctions for missing an obligatory PCR test, it is legally baseless to consider the player in question to be ineligible.”
