FIFA’s own lawyers privately concluded that Democratic Republic of Congo goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi was ineligible to play in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, including the decisive play-off against Nigeria, but the governing body took no action and let the team carry on, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The November 2025 tie in Rabat, Morocco, finished 1-1 after extra time before DR Congo won 4-3 on penalties, ending Nigeria’s hopes of qualifying. DR Congo then beat Jamaica in March to reach the World Cup for the first time in 52 years.
According to the report, FIFA’s legal team found that Mpasi, who previously represented France at youth level, had not completed the paperwork required to switch his international allegiance to the Central African nation. Despite that finding, he was allowed to keep playing.
The revelation has sharpened scrutiny of how FIFA handled a formal complaint filed by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in December 2025. The NFF alleged that several foreign-born DR Congo players, Mpasi among them, were not properly eligible and that the Congolese federation had misled FIFA to obtain clearances.
Documents and correspondence seen by the Times, along with information from a senior official involved in the case, showed FIFA weighed several options. These included awarding the match to Nigeria, imposing fines, replacing DR Congo with Nigeria in the play-off against Jamaica, or doing nothing on the grounds that Nigeria’s complaint was filed too late.
Under FIFA rules, fielding an ineligible player can lead to forfeiture of the match concerned. The body has applied such sanctions before, notably against Greece in 2016 and Bolivia in 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
Cameroonian former FIFA official Prince Zelkifli Rahman Ngoufonja, known as Prince Zul, pointed to the ties between FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Véron Mosengo-Omba, an Infantino ally who became the sole candidate and was elected president of the Congolese football federation after DR Congo qualified.
“If FIFA removed Congo from the World Cup,” he said, the prospects of Infantino’s ally “could have been damaged.”
Mosengo-Omba said he was unaware of FIFA’s findings on Mpasi’s eligibility.
Nigeria has now missed a second consecutive World Cup, having also failed to qualify for the 2022 tournament in Qatar. A senior official of Nigeria’s National Sports Commission told ESPN the findings vindicated the country’s stance and that Nigeria was weighing its options, including seeking compensation from FIFA for economic losses stemming from its absence.
FIFA said its disciplinary committee declared the NFF complaint inadmissible on procedural grounds, adding that its committees decide cases independently on the basis of regulations and facts.
