By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
Expectations of Nigeria’s cadet football team, Golden Eaglets playing in the 2025 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) and FIFA U-17 World Cup final in Qatar is fast disappearing like the early morning dews following the team’s 1-0 defeat by Les Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire in the semi-final match of the ongoing West Africa Football Union (WAFU) Zone B U-17 Championship played at the University of Ghana Stadium, Accra on Saturday.
Youbah Coulibaly took advantage of a defensive mix-up by Manu Garba’s side in the 54th minute to fire Cote d’Ivoire ahead and that turned out to be the only goal of the encounter on Saturday, a result which means Nigeria will not qualify for the 2025 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations and the FIFA U-17 World Cup.
But, since Nigeria’s failure to reach the final of WAFU-B tournament at the weekend, some people in the country are still optimistic that the Eaglets may still qualify for the two competitions next year because of the recent expansion of the FIFA U-17 World Cup to a 48-team field and African continent has already been alloted 10 spots in the final, an increase of six more teams to represent Africa.
However, more facts have emerged on the sharing formula for the 10 slots alloted to CAF by the world football governing body which had ratified the slots par six FIFA Confederations at its recent FIFA Council meeting prior to the 74th FIFA Congress in Bangkok, Thailand. FIFA adopted several key decisions, particularly in relation to the future of football and unanimously approved the increase in the number of teams in the FIFA U-17 World Cup final from 24 to 48.
Subsequently, the slot allocation was confirmed as follows: AFC: 9; CAF: 10; Concacaf: 8; CONMEBOL: 7; OFC: 3; UEFA 11, for FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar 2025-2029.
But Prompt News has exclusively gathered that Nigeria may still not qualify for AFCON and World Cup because the West African subregion which has two Zones (WAFU-A and WAFU-B) comprising 16 countries is entitled to produce four representatives while UNAF (5-North Africa),
UNIFFAC (8-Central Africa), CECAFA (12-East Africa) and COSAFA (14-Southern Africa) will produce the remaining teams to represent CAF in the global tournament from next year.
It was also gathered that WAFU- B with seven countries namely Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger, Nigeria and Togo cannot produce three or four AFCON qualifiers at the expense of WAFU-A with nine countries of Cape Verde, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
If the the situation continues like this only the finalists of the WAFU-B tournament will advance to the 2025 U-17 AFCON, which in turn serves as the qualifying competition for the FIFA U-17 World Cup.
Regrettably, it will also be the second time in a row that the 5-time World Champions, Golden Eaglets, who won their last FIFA U-17 title in 2015 under the guidance of Coach Emmanuel Amuneke, have failed to qualify for the global tournament. READ ALSO:
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Meanwhile, as the debate continues on the sharing formula for the additional six slots alloted to the Confederation by FIFA, CAF hierarchy are yet to make official announcements on the allocation of the additional six slots to the regional bodies of UNAF, WAFU, UNIFFAC, CECAFA and COSAFA respectively.
But common sense dictates that regional bodies with more members like WAFU (16), COSAFA (14) and CECAFA (12) will get additional slots when CAF decides to make official pronouncement on the sharing formula for the six more slots.
