Nigeria among most populous W’Cup absentees

Nigeria is among eight of the world’s 10 most populous countries currently missing from the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a trend that has forced football-mad supporters in several of the affected nations to throw their support behind other countries at the ongoing tournament in North America.

According to a BBC World Service report, of the ten most populous nations globally, only the United States and Brazil have teams at the current World Cup, while Russia and Nigeria, despite having appeared at previous editions, are absent this time around.

China and Indonesia have each featured at the tournament only once in history, while India, the world’s most populous nation, along with Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Pakistan, are yet to make an appearance, though India technically qualified for the 1950 finals in Brazil before withdrawing weeks before the tournament.

The absence of these football-mad nations has led to unusual scenes at watch parties across South Asia, with supporters in cities such as Dhaka, in Bangladesh, as well as parts of India and Indonesia, adopting other countries, most notably Argentina, as their own during the competition.

Bangladeshi actor and football enthusiast, Audite Karim, said it was difficult to accept that countries with such large fan bases continue to lag behind in the sport.

According to British academic and economist, Stefan Szymanski, population size alone does not guarantee footballing success, as wealth, infrastructure and historical know-how also play significant roles.

Szymanski, co-author of the best-selling book, Soccernomics, noted that most nations require a minimum annual average income per capita of about $15,000 (N22.9m) to compete for major honours, though he acknowledged that Brazil and Argentina, whose average incomes fall below that threshold, have combined to win the World Cup eight times, a fact he attributed to their long footballing history and accumulated experience.

He explained that this experience factor also explains why Uruguay, a country of just 3.5 million people, was able to win the World Cup twice, in 1930 and 1950, having played its first international match in 1902, well over a decade before Brazil’s first representative fixture.

African and South Asian countries, by contrast, either came to the game later or spent longer periods under colonial rule, leaving them to play catch-up. Morocco, which reached the 2022 World Cup semifinal, and South Korea, which finished fourth as co-hosts in 2002, remain the only nations from their respective continents to have gone that far, though Szymanski observed that countries such as Indonesia, India and Bangladesh continue to struggle to close the gap despite growing interest in the sport.

Ethiopia’s case was highlighted as one of persistent underinvestment, having come closest to World Cup qualification in the 2014 African qualifying series, where the Walias were eliminated by Nigeria over two legs, despite having previously won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1962.

Chief Executive Officer of the Ethiopian Premier League, Kifle Seife, disclosed that the country’s top-flight season had been severely affected by a shortage of approved stadiums, a challenge that also forced the men’s national team to host their African qualifying matches in Morocco.