Mikel: NFF Chiefs Must All Resign After World Cup Failure

A Nation’s Pain, a Captain’s Anger

John Obi Mikel has never been the kind of man to stay quiet when Nigerian football is hurting. After the Super Eagles were knocked out of 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying by DR Congo on penalties in November, the former Chelsea midfielder and 89-cap international went public with a message that thousands of fans have been thinking: the people running Nigerian football need to go.

“It’s a hammer blow,” Mikel said on his Obi One Podcast. “When you have a country as big as we do, over 300 million people, the biggest country in Africa, and we’re not going to the World Cup for the second time in a row.” There was no diplomatic softening. No ‘let’s wait and see.’ Just the raw frustration of a man who wore that green shirt 89 times and knows what it represents.

The Demand: No More Second Chances

Mikel’s message to NFF president Ibrahim Musa Gusau and the federation’s leadership was direct. “I’ve said it so many times that the FA, the people that are running the FA, they should all resign. They have to resign because it’s the second time it’s happened.” He’d actually said the same thing months earlier, before the elimination, warning that the board would need to go if qualification failed. Now that it has, he’s made clear he isn’t backing down.

The former midfielder didn’t just point fingers at administrators. He was honest enough to acknowledge that players carry responsibility too. “Yes, the players have to take responsibility, but the biggest problem is from the top. From the top. If the government want to get involved, they have to get involved because it’s not acceptable,” he said. That’s the kind of layered accountability that’s too often missing from Nigerian football discourse.

The Morocco Comparison That Stings

Mikel pointed to Morocco as the standard Nigeria should be chasing. That contrast hurts. While Nigeria was eliminated by DR Congo in penalties after a 1-1 aggregate draw, Morocco have become a continental powerhouse, reaching the semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The Atlas Lions did it with structure, investment, and leadership continuity. Nigeria, by contrast, has cycled through coaches, promised reforms that never arrived, and watched its World Cup record deteriorate.

The Super Eagles last appeared at a World Cup in Russia in 2018. They missed Qatar 2022, eliminated by Ghana on away goals. Now they’ve missed North America 2026. That’s two missed editions in a row from a nation that reached the Round of 16 in Brazil in 2014 with Mikel in the starting lineup. He knows exactly how far the team has fallen, and he’s not pretending otherwise.

The NFF’s Credibility Problem

It isn’t just about results on the pitch. Questions around federation management have been building for years. National Sports Commission chairman Shehu Dikko publicly confirmed that the NSC had been paying Super Eagles coach Eric Chelle’s salary on behalf of the NFF, even though the commission was not party to Chelle’s contract. That’s a federation that can’t reliably pay its own head coach. It’s a governance failure that goes beyond tactics and selections.

As reported by FootballInNigeria.com.ng, Nigeria also finished third at the 2025 AFCON in Morocco, without a single NPFL-based player making the squad. The local league is being bypassed entirely while the federation debates its own internal politics. That gap, between the state of domestic football and the demands of international competition, is at the heart of everything Mikel is talking about.

What Happens Now?

FIFA has reportedly not yet issued a final verdict on any potential reprieve, with Nigeria reportedly holding out some slim hope of a backdoor qualification route. But regardless of how that resolves, the structural questions aren’t going away. Mikel made it clear: winning the AFCON would not make up for the World Cup absence. “I said it, if we do not qualify for the World Cup, the NFF, the whole board has to go. You can’t keep repeating the same mistake every time and thinking something is going to change,” he said.

He’s right. And the real question isn’t whether Nigerian fans agree, because they overwhelmingly do. The question is whether the people in power at Nigerian football’s governing body are capable of doing what the nation’s greatest captain is asking. Nigerian football fans betting on better days ahead can explore the latest Bet9ja promotional offers, which give punters up to ₦100,000 in bonuses, while waiting for the federation to match the ambitions of those who play and love the game.