Paris 2024: Nigeria legend Desire Oparanozie laments poor officiating against Ethiopia

The former Super Falcons, who announced her retirement from football at only 29 years of age due to injuries, missed the Paris 2024 Olympic qualifiers match while on scouting duty with the grassroots.

Nigeria was without head coach Randy Waldrum and two key members of the defence Ashleigh Plumptre and veteran Onome Ebi but they still had most of their FIFA Women’s World Cup squad in action.

However, the West Africans could not continue the momentum from Australia/New Zealand where they reached the round of 16 beaten before losing on penalties to the Lionesses of England.

Ethiopia took the lead after just six minutes when Birkie Amare converted from a scramble in the box but the visitors responded in the second half through captain Rasheedat Ajibade who scored a brilliant goal from outside the box in the 52nd minute.

The nine-time Africa champions thought they found the winner at stoppage time when Ifeoma Onumonu headed home from close range but the assistant referee flagged it offside.

It remains to be ascertained if Onumonu was offside or the line woman’s decision was from the buildup leading to the goal as Oparanozie like many other football fans has yet to see the wrong in the goal scored.

Meanwhile, since there was no Video Assistant Referee (VAR) to call the obvious human error, the claim could only be tagged as lamentation and the former captain took to her X account to question the officials’ decision.

“Too busy from yesterday’s scouting programme, that I could only watch the Falcons highlight,” Oparanozie wrote.

“But how ref take get mind disallow this goal, just how? Was this really an offside?”