The Nigeria Football Federation has formally challenged the Confederation of African Football’s decision to annul Edo Queens’ penalty-shootout victory over Ghana’s Ampem Darkoa Ladies in the 2026 WAFU-B Women’s Champions League qualifying final, arguing that the Nigerian champions should not bear the sporting consequences of an error committed by match officials.
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The appeal is contained in a cover letter dated September 28, 2026 and signed by NFF Deputy Secretary-General Emmanuel Ikpeme, with the federation asking the CAF Appeals Committee to review both the legality and proportionality of the remedy imposed after the disputed final.
Edo Queens and Ampem Darkoa played out a 2-2 draw after 90 minutes in the final in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on September 5. Rather than proceeding to the required 30 minutes of extra time, match officials sent the teams directly into a penalty shootout, which Edo Queens won 4-1 to be declared WAFU-B champions and secure the zone’s ticket to the CAF Women’s Champions League.
Ampem Darkoa, through the Ghana Football Association, subsequently protested the procedure adopted in determining the winner, arguing that the final ought to have gone into extra time before penalties.
CAF upheld the protest, finding that the direct resort to penalties after regulation time breached the competition rules. Reports of the decision cite Articles 13.1 and 72.4 of the CAF Women’s Champions League regulations, with Article 72.4 requiring two 15-minute periods of extra time when a final remains level after 90 minutes and a penalty shootout only if the teams are still tied thereafter.
CAF consequently annulled the shootout result and ordered the final to resume from the 2-2 scoreline at the beginning of extra time, with a fresh penalty shootout to follow if no winner emerges after the additional 30 minutes. The eventual winner would take WAFU-B’s place in the 2026 CAF Women’s Champions League.
The NFF is not disputing that the prescribed extra time was not played. Its appeal instead focuses on whether the consequence imposed by CAF can lawfully be visited on Edo Queens when the club did not cause the procedural error.
According to the federation, even if the referee and other match officials wrongly proceeded directly to penalties, Edo Queens neither requested that course of action nor refused to play extra time.
The NFF said the Nigerian side simply complied with the instructions of the officials responsible for conducting the match and participated in the shootout in good faith. It stressed that there was no finding that Edo Queens engaged in misconduct, manipulation or bad faith in relation to the decision to bypass extra time.
“Rather, the club complied with the official instruction that the winner be decided from the spot,” the federation argued.
Central to the appeal is the NFF’s contention that there is a legal and sporting distinction between a team benefiting from an official’s mistake and a team causing or procuring that mistake.
According to the federation, Edo Queens’ eventual victory in the shootout could not retrospectively make the club responsible for the failure of the officials to follow the competition regulations.
“The fact that Edo Queens ultimately won the shoot-out cannot retrospectively convert its compliance with the referee’s instruction into responsibility for the regulatory breach,” the NFF submitted.
The federation further argued that CAF’s authority to determine that a regulatory irregularity occurred does not automatically mean the continental body possesses unlimited discretion in deciding the remedy.
The NFF has therefore asked the CAF Appeals Committee to determine whether the applicable competition rules specifically empower CAF to invalidate a completed penalty shootout and restart a final from extra time in circumstances where neither participating club was responsible for the procedural breach.
It maintained that the responsibility for applying the correct match procedure rested with the referee, match officials and administrators rather than Edo Queens or their players.
The NFF consequently wants the Appeals Committee to distinguish between correcting an admitted regulatory violation and transferring the consequences of that violation to a club which, according to the federation, merely followed the officials’ directions.
It further argued that whatever remedy CAF adopts must have a clear regulatory foundation and must be proportionate to the breach that has been established.
The federation is asking the Appeals Committee to overturn the decision and restore Edo Queens’ 4-1 penalty-shootout victory, maintaining that the sporting outcome should not be taken away from a team against which no responsibility for the procedural error was established.
The dispute arose after an eventful final in Ouagadougou.
Ampem Darkoa took an early lead through Berline Nyarko, before Edo Queens responded through Dooshima Tarnum to make it 1-1.
Nyarko restored the Ghanaian side’s advantage from the penalty spot in the second half, but Oluebube Umejiaku struck late for Edo Queens to level the game at 2-2 before the controversial decision to move directly to penalties.
Edo Queens then prevailed 4-1 in the shootout. CAF’s own match report published after the game initially described the Nigerian side as WAFU-B champions and said their victory had secured qualification for the CAF Women’s Champions League.
The title had capped a strong tournament for Edo Queens. They defeated AS Garde Nationale of Niger 7-0, beat ASEC Mimosas 3-1, and later lost 2-1 to Ampem Darkoa in the group stage before overpowering hosts USFA 5-1 in the semi-final to set up another meeting with the Ghanaian champions.
Edo Queens also collected individual honours following the final, with Doosuur Anastasia Atume finishing as the tournament’s leading scorer with four goals and five assists, while 16-year-old Oluwakemi Adegbuyi was named best player.
The controversy has also attracted criticism outside the NFF.
Chairman of the Advocacy for Nigeria Football Reform Initiative, Harrison Jalla, questioned why the clubs should suffer for the match officials’ failure to apply the rules correctly, arguing that disciplinary responsibility should fall on those responsible for administering the match rather than on the players who followed their instructions.
Meanwhile, as of September 30, CAF’s publicly accessible Women’s Champions League pages still carried its original September 6 report declaring Edo Queens WAFU-B champions, while another CAF competition page continued to list “Winner: Edo Queens.” Those public pages appeared not yet to have been updated to reflect the subsequent annulment and pending appeal.
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