'It’s not my responsibility' — Super Eagles striker refuses to carry Nigeria's FIFA World Cup shame

In an exclusive interview arranged by LaLiga, Sevilla striker and African MVP nominee Akor Adams has broken his silence on Nigeria's failure to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the Super Eagles' second consecutive absence from the tournament. 

Adams, who became one of Nigeria's most exciting attacking talents this season, pushed back against the idea that any individual player should bear the burden of the nation's qualification failures, insisting accountability rests with players and the football federation, NFF, describing the absence as "a sore loss" and "disappointing".

He is one of the most exciting Nigerian footballers of his generation, thriving at Sevilla, nominated for the African MVP award, and one of the few Super Eagles players to emerge from the wreckage of a disastrous World Cup qualifying campaign with his reputation not just intact, but elevated. Yet Akor Adams is in no mood to be made the face of a failure that, in his view, runs much deeper than any single player.

In an exclusive interview facilitated by LaLiga, the 26-year-old Sevilla striker was asked the question Nigerian fans have been wrestling with since the Super Eagles were eliminated: who is responsible? His answer was measured, honest and pointed.

The comments will provoke debate. Some will read them as a deflection. Others will recognise them as a challenge, directed not just at journalists, but at the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) itself. 

Adams was not distancing himself from the disaster. He was widening the frame of accountability to include the institution that, in the eyes of many fans and analysts, bears the heaviest share of the blame.

The scale of the Super Eagles' failure cannot be overstated. The 2026 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, was the most accessible tournament in African football history. 

FIFA expanded the competition to 48 teams, granting Africa nine direct qualifying places, a record allocation. Nigeria, a footballing giant by any continental measure, still could not claim one of them.

The Super Eagles failed to win Group C, which was eventually topped by South Africa, and were forced into the CAF play-off system, where their journey ended in a heartbreaking penalty shootout defeat to DR Congo in the final play-off round. 

It is the second consecutive World Cup Nigeria will miss, after also sitting out the 2022 tournament in Qatar. Back-to-back absences from football's biggest stage represent a nadir for a nation that has appeared at the tournament six times and produced some of the continent's most celebrated players.

Nigeria's qualifying campaign was undermined at almost every turn. Despite boasting world-class talent in Victor Osimhen and Ademola Lookman, the team stumbled repeatedly against opponents ranked well below them. 

Successive draws against Lesotho and Zimbabwe in the opening qualifiers put the Eagles immediately on the back foot. A defeat to Benin, managed by former Super Eagles boss Gernot Rohr, a man intimately familiar with his former players' habits and weaknesses, proved the decisive blow that cost Nigeria top spot in the group.

Away from the pitch, the NFF's handling of the coaching situation drew withering criticism from former internationals and football analysts alike.

Jose Peseiro led the early stages of the qualifying cycle but could not convert Nigeria's talent into consistent results, losing the dressing room's confidence in the process.

Finidi George was appointed as a popular local choice, only for his tenure to collapse within three months amid a series of poor results and very public friction with key senior players.

Eric Chelle arrived in January 2025 as a salvage operation. He stabilised the squad sufficiently to reach the play-off final, but could not get Nigeria over the line against DR Congo.

The instability meant that Nigeria never developed a consistent tactical identity across the full qualifying cycle. Add to that a chronic struggle with away form, a heavy dependence on foreign-based stars, and an ongoing failure to develop a reliable pipeline of talent from the domestic Nigeria Premier Football League, NPFL, and the structural picture becomes clear. This was not simply bad luck. It was, as Adams implies, a systemic failure.

Against this backdrop of institutional collapse, Adams' own journey stands as a sharp contrast. The Kogi-born forward made his senior Super Eagles debut as recently as October 2025, scoring on his very first appearance against Lesotho, and went on to represent Nigeria at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco. His performances there, alongside Osimhen and Lookman, marked him out as a player of genuine international quality.

His LaLiga season at Sevilla has been exceptional: eight goals, three assists, and over 1,700 minutes played, including a late winner against Atletico Madrid and a goal in a 4–1 demolition of Barcelona. The African MVP nomination reflects what those watching week to week have known all season, Adams is the real deal.

Which is precisely why his words carry weight. When one of Nigeria's best-performing players tells the football community that no individual can shoulder this burden alone, it is not a cop-out. It is a verdict on a system. 

The federation that failed to provide stability, the coaches who could not agree on an identity, the administrators who made late appointments and poor decisions, all of them, Adams suggests, must own this equally.