Sao Tome and Principe have been reinstated in Group A of the Africa Cup of Nations qualification series after the CAF Appeals Board removed Mauritius from the pool following the former’s successful appeal.
The case has gone back and forth, with So Tomé and Prncipe winning on the field of play, Mauritius winning their case against the former at the Disciplinary Board for fielding a player who tested positive for COVID19, and the Appeals Board now restoring So Tomé and Prncipe to the race and ejecting Mauritius.
The Appeal Board ruled that “given that neither the CAF Disciplinary Code nor CAF’s COVID-19 protocols provide any sanctions for missing an obligatory PCR test, it is legally baseless to consider the player in question to be ineligible.”
Mauritius had protested to CAF that So Tomé and Prncipe player, Luis Leal Dos Anjos did not undergo the obligatory PCR test during their match on 24th March, 2022 in the frame of the AFCON 2023 qualifiers
Nigeria’s Head Coach, Jose Santos Peseiro, awoke to the news in New Jersey, where the Eagles face Ecuador in a friendly encounter on Thursday, and simply stated, “We are focused on the friendly game with Ecuador.” It has no bearing on the situation. “We take on whatever is in front of us.”
Because So Tomé and Prncipe do not have an approved playing ground in their country and play their home matches in the dainty Moroccan city, the NFF’s plans for the away match on June 13th, following the game against Sierra Leone in Abuja on June 9th, have now been diverted from east (Mauritius) to west (Marrakech).
