SUPER Eagles midfield general, John Obi Mikel, is eligible to play against Cote d'Ivoire after all. Shortly after Tuesday's clash with Ethiopia in which the Chelsea star got a yellow card, news flew around Rustenberg that the Finland 2003 star would miss the next game due to two yellow cards.

But the Pan African News Agency (PANA) reported Wednesday that Mikel is free to play the quarter-final match on Sunday because he was not given any caution in Nigeria's opening game against Burkina Faso last week.

A call to the office of the Africa Football Confederation (CAF) in Johannesburg also confirmed that Mikel was not cautioned in the game with either Burkina Faso or Zambia.

However, Fegor Ogude will miss the game because he got his first yellow card in the 24th minute of the game with Burkina Faso after he tripped Jonathan Pitroipa and received

another in the match against Ethiopia in the 63rd minute.

According to the rules, any player with two yellow cards in the group games will miss the next match, hence Ogude will not play on Sunday.

Meanwhile, all the other Nigerian players who got just a yellow card in the first round, including Godfrey Oboabona, Nosa Igiebor, Ahmed Musa, Mikel, and Sunday Mba - will have the cautions wiped out in the second phase of the competition.

source: http://odili.net/news/source/2013/jan/31/5.html