Amaju Pinnick, a former Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) president, has asserted that, had he still been leading Nigerian football, he would have secured the Super Eagles’ qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Pinnick made the remarks during an interview on Sunday Oliseh’s Global Football Insights show, expressing disappointment that Nigeria failed to take advantage of the expanded World Cup format, which allows up to ten African nations to qualify for the tournament hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
“I honestly didn’t see this coming,” Pinnick said. “With ten African teams qualifying, there is really no basis for Nigeria not to be among them.”
He recalled Nigeria’s successful qualification for the 2018 World Cup, despite being drawn in what was considered one of the toughest groups in African qualifying history.
“In 2018, we had the toughest group ever; we had all the AFCON winners. If I were there, definitely, Nigeria would have qualified,” he said.
“Algeria hadn’t lost in over 20 games, Cameroon were defending champions, Zambia were champions, and Nigeria was the least considered. But guess what? We qualified with two games to spare, and we didn’t sleep.”
Pinnick also referenced the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, where Nigeria narrowly missed out following a playoff defeat to Ghana under the away-goals rule.
“We did the same work in 2022, but the format changed to head-to-head. Nobody gave Ghana a chance, but they came through. We didn’t lose that tie; we were eliminated on away goals.”
