The second friendly match of the Super Eagles of Nigeria against Burkina Faso scheduled to hold in London on Monday has been canceled.

Seven Burkinabe players have failed to secure entry visas into the United Kingdom.

Chairman of the NFF Technical and Development Committee, Barrister Chris Green said, “We regret to announce that the second friendly match we had scheduled for the Super Eagles as part of preparations for the remaining matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying series and the beginning of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualification race would no longer take place on Monday, 27th March 2017.

“The match in question is called off due to no fault of either the organisers or the Nigeria Football Federation. We will announce further plans for the Super Eagles’ preparation for these two important qualifying campaigns in due course.”

It was learnt that the Burkinabe players had to travel to Morocco for visas.

However, the applications were still pending at the British Embassy in Morocco as at close of work on Friday, the last working day before match day in London.

NFF President and CAF Executive Committee member, Amaju Pinnick said Gernot Rohr wanted to play physical African sides in preparation for the World Cup Qualifiers.

“The Technical Adviser (Gernot Rohr) wanted to play very physical African teams, as part of the preparations for the World Cup qualifying matches against Cameroon, and we duly fulfilled that with the arrangements we made for Senegal and Burkina Faso.

“Unfortunately, some of the Burkinabe players could not secure entry visas into the UK. It is nobody’s fault. Our joy is that we were able to play Senegal and got a fair result with a depleted squad, and also the objectives of team bonding, team building, team discipline and further imparting the Technical Adviser’s philosophy to the group have been well served.

“The Technical Adviser has also been able to look at a few more options, and our strength-in-depth is looking very good.”

Azeez