Edo Queens Title in Limbo as NFF Appeals CAF Order to Resume WAFU-B Final
Edo Queens thought they had finished the job.
They beat Ghana’s Ampem Darkoa 4-1 on penalties after a 2-2 draw in Ouagadougou and were initially declared WAFU-B champions, securing the region’s ticket to the CAF Women’s Champions League. CAF’s own competition report recorded the Nigerian side as winners.
That outcome has now been overturned.
CAF upheld a protest from Ampem Darkoa and ruled that the final should not have gone directly to penalties after 90 minutes. The competition regulations required two 15-minute periods of extra time first.
The consequence is extraordinary: the original penalty shoot-out has been set aside and the final is to resume from 2-2, with 30 minutes of extra time to be played. If the sides are still level after that, a new penalty shoot-out will follow.
CAF says neither club caused the error
The ruling is especially significant because the official account published by the Ghana Football Association says CAF did not blame either Edo Queens or Ampem Darkoa for the procedural failure.
CAF attributed the mistake to an administrative instruction and rejected Ampem Darkoa’s request for a complete replay. The 90 minutes already played remain valid.
That means the dispute is not about whether Edo Queens and Ampem Darkoa completed the original match in good faith.
It is about what remedy should follow after the competition procedure was applied incorrectly.
CAF’s decision is that the match must continue from the point at which extra time should have begun.
NFF reported to have appealed
The Nigeria Football Federation has now challenged that remedy, according to Nigerian reporting.
Punch reports that the NFF filed an appeal on behalf of Edo Queens on Tuesday, September 29, arguing against CAF’s decision to annul the shoot-out victory and send the final back into extra time.
The reported Nigerian position is straightforward: Edo Queens should not be punished for an error they did not cause.
That argument is reinforced by the official account of the CAF ruling, which says neither finalist was responsible for the procedural mistake.
The appeal, however, has not yet been matched in the available authority record to a public NFF statement or a CAF Appeals Committee acknowledgement.
For now, the confirmed position is that CAF’s ruling stands and the final is to resume from 2-2 unless that decision is altered through the appeal process.
A title and Champions League place remain at stake
This is not merely a dispute over the wording of a result.
The WAFU-B final decides the zone’s representative in the CAF Women’s Champions League.
CAF had initially listed Edo Queens among the qualified teams after their shoot-out win, but the later ruling means the sporting outcome is no longer settled in the form first recorded.
Edo Queens reached the final after beating hosts USFA 5-1 in the semi-finals. Ampem Darkoa had already beaten the Nigerian side 2-1 during the group stage before the teams met again in the decider.
That history now feeds into an unusual second chapter.
The title, the regional ticket and the validity of the original shoot-out outcome all remain under pressure.
No resumption date confirmed
CAF’s ruling requires WAFU-B to announce a date, venue and kick-off time for the continuation in consultation with CAF and the two national associations.
No authority-confirmed resumption date has yet been established in the available record.
Until that changes — or until the appeal produces a different decision — Edo Queens remain trapped between a title they had already celebrated and a final CAF says is not yet finished.
