Alex Iwobi, a Nigerian international footballer who plays as a midfielder for Fulham Football Club in London, England, has said Nigeria’s men’s national team, the Super Eagles, are still hopeful of reaching the 2026 FIFA World Cup, even as their qualification situation remains uncertain.
Speaking in an interview aired by SuperSport Football, a sports broadcaster in Africa, the 29-year-old described the mood in camp as one of patience, as Nigeria waits for a possible opening that could revive their route to the tournament, which will be hosted across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Okay News reports that Iwobi, who featured for Nigeria at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, was asked a difficult question about priorities: whether he would rather win the Africa Cup of Nations or secure a World Cup place.
He explained that while winning the Africa Cup of Nations would be a major career achievement, he also thinks about teammates who have never experienced the World Cup.
“I mean we are still waiting, well hopefully we can go to the World Cup, but I feel it is a tough one,” Iwobi said.
He added that choosing between a continental title and a World Cup appearance is not straightforward, because the World Cup dream matters deeply to players who have not been there. “I cannot be selfish,” he said, explaining that he struggles to pick one goal over the other.
Iwobi’s comments come as the Nigeria Football Federation, the body that runs football in Africa’s most populous country, awaits a decision from the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), world football’s governing body based in Zurich, Switzerland.
The federation has filed a formal petition after Nigeria’s World Cup qualification play-off defeat to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a Central African country often called Congo-Kinshasa, in a match that ended in a penalty shootout at the Moulay Hassan Stadium, a football venue in Morocco, in November.
In its petition, the Nigeria Football Federation alleges that the Congolese side fielded up to six ineligible players during the decisive match. The case is linked to what the federation described as a “dual nationality trap,” arguing that while FIFA rules allow a player to switch nationality under certain conditions, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s constitution does not recognise dual citizenship.
Nigeria Football Federation General Secretary, Dr Sanusi Mohammed, said the federation believes it has a strong argument and insists FIFA may have been misled during the process that cleared the players.
“We are waiting,” he said, adding that the federation’s concern is that “FIFA was deceived into clearing them,” and claiming “the process was fraudulent.”
Nigeria recently finished third at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco, a major international tournament for African national teams, and the Super Eagles are widely seen as one of the continent’s most talented squads as they push to keep their 2026 World Cup hopes alive.
