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THIS DAY IN HISTORY: FIRST TIME NIGERIA GETS INVITE TO WORLD CUP

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BY KUNLE SOLAJA.

Till date, Nigeria has entered for the FIFA World Cup in 15 editions and succeeded in qualifying on six occasions.

It was on this date, 20 July 1959, that the then Nigeria Football Association (NFA) received an invite to feature the country’s national team in the World Cup for the first time.

It was for the preliminary competition for the 1962 World Cup scheduled for Chile.

It was the first time that Nigeria would register for the global football fiesta having just two months earlier been granted provisional admission into FIFA.

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The provisional admission was ratified at the Rome Congress on 22 August 1960. A formal letter was sent on 6 September 1960.

It had been a dream for the NFA to get the national team feature in the global fiesta. Writing the editorial of the “Nigeria Football Association Official Handbook 1958”, Regina Banham Allen, better known as Derby Allen who was the Honourable Secretary and Treasurer of the NFA, projected that Nigeria would be at the 1962 World Cup.

His words: “Do not lightly scorn the NFA ambition in this direction, for after this year (1958), the next period for the competition is in four years time and much can be covered in that time.

“For if such comparatively small countries as Switzerland, Holland, Poland , Cuba , Thailand, Belgium and non footballing country like the US can enter, why not Nigeria?”

Nigeria entered for the 1962 edition and were eliminated by Ghana in the opening continental qualifying round.

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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