COULD CAF AND FIFA BE WORKING HAND IN HAND TO CHEAT NIGERIA. . .

The senior national team of Nigeria have moved one place up in the latest Fifa Africa ranking but dropped from the previous 35th position they held to 36th in the latest world ranking despite winning all their matches of the month under review. The best five football playing nations in Africa following Thursday's release of Fifa world ranking are: Cote d' Ivoire, Ghana, Algeria, Nigeria and Mali. It took us good eight months to finally climb above Mali in any of the Fifa Africa rankings, a side Nigeria thrashed so well in the last competitive meeting when the two sides clashed in the semifinal of the Africa Cup of Nations last February in Durban, South Africa. And again, Ghana who ranked 24th in the world and have been occupying the 2nd spot in Africa despite the fact that they too have lost matches since we won AFCON can not be said to have done better than Nigeria in the past eight months. Even Cote d' Ivoire at the summit of the African ranking and 19th in the world have also suffered some form of loss at our hands earlier this year during a quarterfinal clash at AFCON as the game ended 2-1 in favour of Nigeria. What is so annoying is the fact that Algeria who didn't take part in the last edition of AFCON are ranked ahead of the champions of Africa both in the Africa ranking and the world's as they occupy 3rd and 28th spots respectively. It is important to note that under Stephen Keshi Nigeria have only lost twice and both happened at the Fifa Confederations Cup in Brazil over two months ago when the African champions lost 2-1 to Uruguay and the world and European champions, Spain. Nigeria lost those matches not because they didn't play well but because they lacked prolific finishers in front of goal at that time as brilliant, skillful and creative Victor Moses and powerful and reliable Emmanuel Emenike were all exempted from the Nigerian squad for that tournament due to injury. In view of the incessant and unjust understimation and other form of misjudgment about the performances of the Super Eagles of Nigeria and our players by the concerned football organisations, it should be recommended that the NFF should sit up and take a critical look at this unfortunate scenario and call both FIFA and CAF to explain the criteria they use in ranking Nigeria in the Fifa rankings and rating our players for glo CAF awards. God bless our Africa!