In the lead up to the World Cup, FIFA officials faced some unwelcome news.
Legal officials at FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, had privately determined that the Democratic Republic of Congo was fielding an ineligible player, according to internal documents and correspondence reviewed by The New York Times and to a top official who was directly involved with the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Such a breach typically means a team will forfeit any match in which the player was ineligible.
Congo needed to win one more match, an eliminator against Jamaica, to reach the World Cup for the first time in 52 years. FIFA quietly allowed the player, and the team, to continue. Congo beat Jamaica and secured its spot at the tournament.
The 2026 World Cup has already put FIFA and its president, Gianni Infantino, under intense scrutiny. The tournament was dogged by questions about fair play and political interference, particularly after FIFA lifted the suspension of a U.S. player following a phone call between Mr. Infantino and President Trump.
It later emerged that Mr. Infantino had engaged in secret talks to sell a portion of future tournaments to a private fund run by the brother of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. That plan prompted European soccer’s governing body to threaten to bring a complaint to criminal court and led to questions over Mr. Infantino’s future.
FIFA’s review of the Congo team followed a complaint about player eligibility filed by Nigeria, which Congo had defeated to reach the match with Jamaica.
While investigating the complaint, FIFA found that Congo had never completed documentation to allow the goalkeeper, Lionel Mpasi, to switch affiliations after he played for France’s youth teams, according to the documents.
FIFA did not deny any of the Times’ findings, saying only that it dismissed Nigeria’s case on a technicality.
In an email to The Times, FIFA said its committees were “autonomous and decide cases based on the applicable regulations and the specific facts before them.” It said Mr. Infantino had no role in such decisions.
In the Congo case, FIFA officials drew up possible options, including awarding the match to Nigeria, imposing fines, replacing Congo with Nigeria in the playoff against Jamaica, or doing nothing on the grounds that Nigeria had filed its complaint late, the documents show.
Additional correspondence about the investigation, also reviewed by The Times, included details about FIFA’s actions in previous cases that matched publicly known information. A FIFA legal official not involved in the case confirmed the authenticity of the documents obtained by the Times.
In 2016, after Greece fielded an ineligible player who had represented Australia at youth level, FIFA acted decisively and imposed a 3-0 defeat for a game against Turkey. Two years later, FIFA changed the results of two Bolivia games for qualification to the 2018 World Cup after it deemed Bolivia had fielded a player who had represented Paraguay in the past.
FIFA controls the most-watched event in soccer, the men’s World Cup, and the 2026 tournament generated more than $15 billion. As the global governing body, FIFA has enormous control over the sport.
The loss to Congo had seismic consequences for Nigerian soccer. It led, in part, to the resignation of the national soccer federation’s entire board.
One of those officials, the federation’s president, Ibrahim Musa Gusau, said he was told that their complaint was dismissed for technical reasons, but not informed about the finding on the goalkeeper’s eligibility.
“They just kept quiet, and they can’t tell anyone because they know it’s going to be a serious crisis for them,” he said of FIFA. He called for an investigation.
The Times reviewed a document that matched Mr. Gusau’s description of FIFA’s response.
The Congo case will also renew attention to Mr. Infantino’s regional ties. As he fights to keep his job, Mr. Infantino will likely need African support.
During his tenure, he has spent political capital and millions of dollars of development funds on the region’s 54 nations. Most of those countries are expected to support Mr. Infantino in next year’s presidential election. FIFA has 211 members worldwide and each has one vote, so winning the African electorate can be crucial.
At the time of the FIFA eligibility review, Véron Mosengo-Omba, an Infantino ally, was preparing a bid to run Congo’s soccer federation. Two months later, amid euphoria at Congo’s World Cup appearance, Mr. Mosengo-Omba was the sole candidate and was elected the federation’s president. Eight other rivals had either withdrawn or been expelled after changes to eligibility rules.
Prince Zelkifli Rahman Ngoufonja, a Cameroonian former FIFA official known as Prince Zul, said that the relationship between Mr. Infantino and Mr. Mosengo-Omba raised questions. “If FIFA removed Congo from the World Cup,” Prince Zul said, Mr. Infantino’s ally’s prospects “could have been damaged.”
Mr. Mosengo-Omba said that he had not known of FIFA’s findings.
Jamaica, the team Congo defeated to secure a World Cup berth, did not respond to a request for comment. CONCACAF, which oversees soccer in the Caribbean and North America, expressed disquiet about the process.
“Any concerns regarding player eligibility, particularly those that may affect the integrity of a competition or the interests of one of our member associations, need to be thoroughly reviewed and addressed,” the body said in a statement.
Mr. Infantino will meet this week with African soccer officials in Cape Verde, where he is expected to try to shore up political support for the FIFA presidential election.
“Infantino needs Africa for survival,” Prince Zul said. “He can’t afford to lose members in Africa.”
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