Nigeria's highest court on Friday ordered a retrial of a long-running case challenging the election of top officials at the country's football federation.
Chris Giwa, the former owner of Giwa FC in the central city of Jos, has insisted since an election August 2014, that he is the rightful president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) even though Amaju Pinnick was declared the winner.
Giwa took the federation to court in the latest in a long line of power struggles at the NFF.
World football's governing body FIFA responded by threatening to ban Nigeria from international competition unless the disputed election was re-run.
NFF lawyer Festus Keyamo said on Friday that Nigeria's highest court had ruled on an appeal by Giwa.
"The Supreme Court has referred the case back to the Federal High Court (in Jos) to be tried properly to know which of the elections held in 2014 was right," Keyamo said.
Observers said Nigeria's participation at the World Cup in Russia is unlikely to be affected because the case is not expected to be concluded by the time the competition starts in June.
The Super Eagles are drawn in Group D with Argentina, Croatia and Iceland.