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The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has appealed CAF’s decision to strip Edo Queens of their WAFU-B title, insisting that the Nigerian champions should not be punished for an error committed by match officials.
In the appeal, the NFF argued that Edo Queens neither caused nor contributed to the failure to play extra time in the September 5 final against Ghana’s Ampem Darkoa Ladies in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
The final ended 2-2 after regulation time, but instead of ordering two 15-minute periods of extra time, the referee directed both teams to proceed straight to penalties. Edo Queens won the shoot-out 4-1 to claim the title and WAFU-B’s ticket to the CAF Women’s Champions League.
CAF subsequently annulled the result after upholding Ampem Darkoa’s protest that the competition regulations required extra time to be played before penalties.
But the NFF, in its appeal filed on Tuesday, maintained that the players had no authority to determine whether extra time should be played, saying responsibility for applying the competition rules rested squarely with the match officials.
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It argued that Edo Queens did not ask for extra time to be omitted, refuse to play it or mislead the referee over the regulations, but merely obeyed the official’s directive and participated in the penalty shoot-out in good faith.
The federation also challenged the decision to nullify the outcome of the shoot-out, noting that there was no finding of misconduct, manipulation or bad faith against Edo Queens that would justify depriving them of the sporting consequence of the match.
According to the NFF, benefiting from an official’s mistake is fundamentally different from causing or procuring the mistake, a distinction it said should be central to determining a fair remedy.
The federation consequently asked CAF’s Appeals Committee to overturn the ruling and restore Edo Queens’ victory, insisting that responsibility for an officiating or administrative error should not be transferred to an innocent participant.
The fate of the WAFU-B crown and the accompanying CAF Women’s Champions League ticket now rests with the Appeals Committee, which could either restore Edo Queens’ victory or order the disputed final to resume from extra time.
