FIFA Knew Congo Goalkeeper Mpasi Was Ineligible, Reports Say, and Let Him Play On

The paperwork was never finished, FIFA’s own lawyers knew it, and the goalkeeper played a World Cup anyway. Internal FIFA documents reported on Tuesday by the New York Times and Le Monde say DR Congo’s Lionel Mpasi never completed his change of association from France, the Associated Press via Sportsnet reports, yet Nigeria’s protest was dismissed as inadmissible in March and Mpasi played all four of Congo’s games at the tournament. Nigeria, the team Congo beat on penalties to get there, is now weighing a compensation claim.

What do the internal documents actually say?

That the switch was incomplete from the start. FIFA disciplinary lawyers noted Mpasi did not have formal approval when he was first called up in 2021, and Congo never completed the documentation for his move from France, where he played under-17 football, to the country of his family ties, Sportsnet reports.

Mpasi debuted for Congo in 2022 and played five qualifiers in the past year, including the African playoff win over Nigeria last November and the intercontinental playoff win over Jamaica in March that sent Congo to a first World Cup in 52 years. Each of those games, under the code’s usual treatment of ineligible players, could have been forfeited.

Why did FIFA dismiss Nigeria’s case?

On timing, not on the facts. FIFA said on Tuesday that the protest was declared inadmissible by its disciplinary committee, was communicated to Nigeria in early March 2026, and became final and binding because no proper appeal was lodged, Sportsnet reports. It strongly rejects any suggestion its president interfered, saying its committees are autonomous.

The reports add the uncomfortable detail: officials drafted several options, including letting Nigeria replace Congo to play Jamaica, or dismissing the complaint on the late-filing technicality, and the technicality is the route that was taken. FIFA’s code also lets it act on its own initiative in a case like this. It did not, which is the same pattern of selective process that made Jesse Marsch’s attack on the Balogun ruling land so hard this week.

How does this compare with past eligibility cases?

Badly, on the precedents the reports themselves cite. Bolivia defaulted two games in 2018 World Cup qualifying for fielding an ineligible player, and Soccerway notes a similar forfeiture for Greece in 2016. In those cases the ineligible appearance itself decided the outcome.

Here, the reported finding of ineligibility produced no forfeiture at all, and the alternative history is unusually concrete: Le Monde reported that defaulting Congo’s results in the games Mpasi played would have sent Burkina Faso, not Congo or Nigeria, into the African playoffs, Sportsnet reports. Three federations can therefore read the same documents and each see a different World Cup that should have happened, a complication no entry on the most World Cup appearances lists will ever record.

What did Mpasi do at the World Cup itself?

He was one of its goalkeeping stories. Mpasi played all four of Congo’s matches, drew 1-1 with Portugal, and produced what an Associated Press report from Atlanta called one of the great defensive performances of the tournament in the 2-1 round-of-32 loss to England, Sportsnet reports.

That is what makes the case impossible to tidy away. This is not a fringe squad player in a dead rubber; it is the starting goalkeeper of a World Cup run measured against the tournament’s greatest goal scorers and fairytale stories, whose eligibility file, on the reported documents, was never closed. Congo’s players did nothing but play the games they were selected for, which is why the argument is aimed at FIFA’s process rather than at them.

What is Nigeria doing now?

Considering asking FIFA to pay for the World Cup it missed. A top official at Nigeria’s National Sports Commission told ESPN the country feels vindicated by the reports and is exploring all options, including compensation for lost participation revenue, sponsorship, player exposure and wider economic losses, as summarised by Get More Sports. Nothing has been decided or filed yet.

The timing gives that threat an audience. The reports landed a day before Congo, Nigeria and Burkina Faso officials attend a three-day CAF summit in Cape Verde, with Infantino expected there, Sportsnet reports, in a week when FIFA’s disciplinary credibility is already the sport’s running argument, from UEFA’s inspector investigating the Ireland-Israel spitting allegation to Concacaf’s investigation into the Suriname abuse case.

What happens next?

Watch Cape Verde first, and Nigeria’s lawyers second. FIFA’s stated position, that the March decision is final and binding, closes the sporting door; a compensation claim would test whether it closes the financial one. Either way, the documents are now public, and a World Cup place that turned on an unfinished form will be argued about long after the summit ends.