TheCable

The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) has admitted to an error in its calculation of Ahmed Musa’s appearances for the Super Eagles. 

After Nigeria’s victory over Cape Verde on Tuesday, Amaju Pinnick, president of the NFF, in a video, claimed that the Super Eagles captain has played his 100th game for the national team.

“First of all, I want you to put your hands together for our captain, Ahmed Musa. Today, he marks his 100th cap for the Super Eagles. It’s not an easy feat, and on behalf of the Nigerian football federation, from today, once your mark your 100th cap, you get 10 million Naira,” he had said.

TheCable did a fact-check on the claim and established that Pinnick had made an inaccurate statement.

In response, the federation accepted its gaffe while adding that the forward would reach a centenary of caps for the Super Eagle if he participates in the “home-and-away matches against the Central African Republic in October.”

“We defer to FIFA in this regard, so Ahmed Musa has 98 caps. If he features, as expected, in the home-and-away matches against the Central African Republic in October, he will clock the tally of 100, and the celebrations will follow in full flow,” the NFF wrote in a statement to TheCable on Wednesday.

“FIFA said on Tuesday that Musa’s appearances in the 3-0 defeat of Togo in a friendly match in Paris in June 2017 and the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 qualifier against Algeria in Constantine in November 2017 did not count.

“The match against Togo was struck off as both Nigeria and Togo made more than the regular number of changes in the game, while the encounter in Constantine, which ended 1-1, was deleted because Nigeria fielded an ineligible player and the result was overturned, with Algeria awarded the game, even as Nigeria had already picked the World Cup ticket before the tie.”