The Nigeria Super Eagles friendly with Argentina has been called off due to logistic issues, MySportDab reports.
The 2023 AFCON runners-up were expected to take on the 2022 World Cup winners in a preparatory friendly ahead of CAF 2026 World Cup Qualifiers coming up in June 2024.
While there were optimism among the Nigerian fans that the match will be held, there were already developments which threatened the staging of the much-anticipated friendly.
First, the match was originally scheduled to be played in China before it was moved away from the Asian region because of the intervention of Lionel Messi.
According to reports, Lionel Messi, who is the captain of Argentina national team, was in a fallout with Chinese football authorities, hence the friendly could not be staged in China.
The Argentinian and Nigerian FA decided to move the friendly to the United States of America away from China due to the fallout.
Messi is said to have played a role in the rescheduling of the friendly but Nigeria had to battle for logistics of securing visas for the players to travel to the United States for the friendly.
According to reports, Nigeria could not meet up with the timeline to secure the visas for Super Eagles players, hence the decision to call off the friendly.
Argentina are now mapping out plan to replace Nigeria with another friendly opponent in the international window while Nigeria are also set to replace the world champions with another opponent.
Nigeria will play South Africa and Benin Republic in June 2024 for 2026 World Cup Qualifiers and would need a rescheduled friendly to prepare for the two match.
