By Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line
THE NIGERIAN Football Federation (NFF) will this weekend dispatch a highly worded letter of Protest demanding an immediate reversal of the appointment of a South African Referee as the Central Official to handle the all-important Play off semifinal qualifier between Nigeria and Gabon scheduled for Thursday 13th October in Rabat Morocco.
Although officials of the NFF at the Glass House in Abuja Nigeria’s capital are holding their strategy to their chest refusing to talk to the media but Patmos Media Line gathered exclusively that there is no going back on the protest.
Said the impeccable source, who though visibly vexed and would not make his comment open: “we were quiet on the handling of the qualifiers whereby our opponents except Benin played all their home and away matches in South Africa and the politics of choice of pitches meant to work against us”.
The source continued: “Rev, you are aware the Benin Republic Head Coach who was our Head Coach before protested and both FIFA and CAF decided to play deaf and dumb”.
The Football family across various platforms in Nigeria is reviewing the morality of the FIFA decisions and why CAF tagged along. An Editor who has covered several world Cup finals across age group levels argued that the choice of a South African Ref is “unruly, intimidating and provoking smelling a danger from afar off to Nigeria”. He said: “this conspiracy is over whelming’.
FIFA’s Head of Qualifications and International Matches, Gordon Savic had wired a telegram to CAF, Nigeria, Gabon and Morocco on the choice of the officials in a letter dated 3rd November 2025 from Zurich but allegedly received on Wednesday 5th November 2025 displaying information of the list of officials for the match.
According to the list, 33 year old Tom Agbongila born 16th December in Cape Town South Africa and listed as a FIFA Ref in 2020 is to be at the center. He is to be assisted by Santos Doz of Angola as AR 1; Thusi Granville also of South Africa as AR2.
The VAR team includes Ahmad Imthaze of Mauritius: Makalima Zennith of South Africa; Packuita Gynquela of Mauritius while the Ref Assessor is Adjovi Hugues-Alain of Benin Republic and Match Commissioner is Prince Kai of Sierra Leone. General Coordinator according to FIFA is KIzuguito Baraka of Tanzania and Security Officer is Mahmdiona Imad-Eddine of Algeria.
Patmos Media dug into the Referring experience of Tom Agbongila and discovered he has never in his five years as FIFA badged Ref handled a world cup match talk less of an important qualifier of this status.
The Cover photos are of Tom Agbongila in action.
He had his baptism of International Referring in 2022 with CHAN which is a CAF competition for local African players but had a dose as one of the officials at the 2023 FIFA U20 world cup finals and then African football league 2023.
Last January at CHAN tournament, he handled the Round of 16 match between Egypt and Democratic Republic of Congo as center Ref and supervised VAR in the last group game between Egypt and Cape Verde in which he allowed the goal of Mostafa Mohammed of Egypt despite obvious protest of ball handling in the buildup to the goal
According to FIFA schedule, Nigeria is to face Gabon in semifinal 1 on Thursday 13th November at 5pm Nigerian time while Cameroon will same day at 8pm tackle DR Congo in the semifinal 2 and winners of both matches will battle for the lone African ticket at the world cup finals in the Americas next year.
Nigeria has been in Visa row, Xenophobic attack and some Diplomatic stalemates with South Africa as the country caused hitches in issuance of Visas to the Super Eagles during the world cup qualifier matches in South Africa and frustrated Remo Stars of Nigeria playing their team delaying the Visa issuance again.
#FIFA #FIFACOMPETITIONSCOMMITTEE
#CAF #GFA #RMFF
