NO Nigerian was deemed good enough by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) as the governing body selected referees and other match officials for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.
The 2025 AFCON will be held in Morocco from December 21 to January 18, with the Super Eagles of Nigeria among the 24 participating teams.
“A total of 73 highly experienced officials comprising 28 referees, 31 assistant referees, and 14 VAR officials have been appointed for this edition of Africa’s biggest football competition,” CAF stated last night.
“The carefully selected officials represent all regions of the continent and include some of Africa’s most experienced referees, who have officiated across a number of major CAF competitions in recent years.
“All appointed match officials are expected to arrive in Morocco on 15 December 2025 for an intensive preparatory course ahead of the competition.
“The programme, which will be led by CAF’s Referees Department, will include physical, technical, and theoretical assessments designed to ensure optimum performance throughout the tournament.
“This careful selection of highly experienced match officials underscores CAF’s continued commitment to refereeing excellence, competition integrity and CAF’s ongoing enhancements of technical standards across African football.”
The breakdown of the 28 referees shows two each from Algeria, Gabon, Egypt, Mauritania and Morocco, with one each from Benin Republic, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tunisia and Uganda.
Of the 31 assistant referees, two each are from Algeria, Angola, Congo, DR Congo, Egypt, Cameroon, Gabon, Kenya and Morocco.
Two of the 14 VAR officials are from Egypt, with the rest from Algeria, Zimbabwe, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya, Niger, Kenya, Mauritania, Senegal, Eswatini, Mauritius.
For several tournaments in recent years, Nigerian match officials have been overlooked by both CAF and FIFA largely due to the poor standard of officiating in the country’s domestic leagues.