African Football Is On Trial, CAF Must Restore Order, Says Sports Minister Enoh After Super Eagles’ Ordeal in Libya

Nigeria’s Minister of Sports Development, John Owan Enoh, has said that African football can be said to be on trial, and that the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has a responsibility to restore order to the football sector in the continent.

The sports minister said this in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Tuesday where he discussed the ordeal that Nigeria’s Senior Football team, the Super Eagles, had faced in Libya ahead of a supposed-to-be qualifying match for the 2025 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) between Nigeria and Libya- which was scheduled to hold on Tuesday- which led to the Super Eagles returning to Nigeria on Monday evening and boycotting the match.

Enoh said, “What CAF does and how it handles this is going to have quite some very serious implications in terms of whatever precedent that may be set or not and how much it’s going to be a disincentive to any other federation that may decide to do this. I think that African football can appropriately be said to be on trial by this point, I think that what CAF does, CAF has a big responsibility to restore back order and responsibility in terms of the conduct of football in Africa.”

Enoh revealed that, before the Super Eagles’ return from Libya, he had instructed the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) to submit a strongly worded protest letter to CAF, saying, “Ahead of their return, I had indicated early yesterday that in the course of conversations between me and the president of the Nigerian Football Federation while they were still holed up in Libya, I had insisted that a strong worded petition, a protest letter had to be made and submitted to CAF before their return.”

“Before the close of work or by evening of yesterday, CAF had issued a statement. That statement has been described variously as having come out late, but all the same that statement has been issued, decrying and saying it was unacceptable the kind of treatment that was meted to the Nigerian team and indicating the fact that it’s referred the matter to the disciplinary committee to further investigate and be sure that people are held accountable, whoever was possible,” he said.

Regarding the potential delisting of the Libya-Nigeria match by CAF, Enoh stated, “In terms of what the implications would be if it is confirmed that CAF has delisted the Libya-Nigeria match, we would need to be able to now find out what are the details of that. I mean, if that is supposed to suggest that that match is going to be rescheduled for a later date, as a country and as a ministry, we’re going to be interested in what would be the content of all of that. If that match is going to be rescheduled, where will it be rescheduled? Is it going to be still in Libya or in some other neutral ground?

“As a country, I believe that we will be asking and pushing for the latter, I mean, having to have the match in a neutral ground. And I think that beyond that, we’ll also be interested in what are the other details of what decisions that CAF has taken. I know for example that the other details may not be as quickly because there’s going to be an investigation, because one of a things that as a country we’ve insisted since yesterday is the fact that there must be consequences.

“We will not think that the kind of gory incident and situation that was faced by our senior national team is just going to get dealt with and solved by the fact of saying that match should now be rescheduled for somewhere else. We’re going to be interested in what CAF is going to do further to the Libyan Football Federation.”

 Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi

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