FIFA's disciplinary committee has decided to forfeit Equatorial Guinea's national team first two qualifying matches for the 2026 World Cup from last November as 3–0 losses, banning the team's striker Nsue for a total of six months, because the Spanish-born player was "ineligible" to compete for the Guinean national team, the organization said on Friday.
Despite initially winning both games with a similar score of 1-0 against Namibia and Liberia, with Nsue scoring the goal, FIFA has ruled against the team.
"After considering all elements brought before it, the FIFA Disciplinary Committee was comfortably satisfied that the player was ineligible and consequently decided to declare the matches of the FIFA World Cup 2026 preliminary competition in which the player was fielded (namely Equatorial Guinea v. Namibia and Liberia v. Equatorial Guinea played on 15 November 2023 and 20 November 2023, respectively) lost by forfeit by Equatorial Guinea (by a score of 3-0)," FIFA’s media release stated.
Nsue's ineligibility means Equatorial Guinea have lost their guaranteed place, after losing six qualifying points in the upcoming championship, which is expected to take place in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
In addition, Equatorial Guinean Football Association (FEGUIFUT) was fined 150,000 Swiss francs ($164,000).
"[...] A six-month ban from playing for any representative team of any association upon the player Emilio Nsue López," the statement said.
However, FIFA did not specify the violation of eligibility rules. According to FIFA rules, players can claim national eligibility if they or a family member were born in the territory or have resided there for at least five years.
Due to his Equatoguinean father's and Spanish mother's birthplace, Nsue was qualified to represent both countries internationally. Earlier in his career, the troubled scorer played several games for Spain at youth level, including featuring at the Under-21 European Championship in 2011.
His father's nation, Equatorial Guinea, was the venue of his 2013 senior international debut. Two years later, he played for Equatorial Guinea at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations. He participated in two more Africa Cup of Nations competitions in 2021 and 2023. In the latter, he finished as the tournament's top scorer and won the Golden Boot.
In 2013, Nsue had already run into eligibility issues after the same two bouts for Equatorial Guinea's team in 2014 World Cup qualifiers. FIFA did not provide a specific reason for his ineligibility back then, either.
This isn't the first time that FIFA has not allowed Equatorial Guinea's players to qualify for tournaments: the same thing happened with Equatorial Guinea's women's team ahead of the 2012 London Olympics and the 2019 Women's World Cup due to problems with the naturalization of players, particularly from Brazil.
The Central African country has been criticized for acting like a "United Nations of football" by bringing in players from different nations, FIFA's article back in November 2022 said.