Soccer: All Whites’ clash against England canceled

The All Whites’ dream football game against England has been canceled.

The New Zealand men’s national team was set to face England at Wembley Stadium, the world’s most famous football stadium, on November 13, which would have been the third time the two nations met.

However, New Zealand Football announced today that it will withdraw from the match due to travel complications and player availability caused by Covid-19.

“We deeply regret that we have been forced to cancel our participation in the next game against England at Wembley,” said NZF CEO Andrew Pragnell.

“This is not an action to be taken lightly, this is a match that we all wanted to play, however, as is the last All Whites team selected for the November 2019 tour, even excluding the New Zealand players. , a significant number of the team would be subject to quarantine or restrictions upon their return home, which would seriously disrupt their national seasons and could jeopardize their professional careers.

“The changing nature of travel restrictions and the availability of commercial flights under Covid means that we are not certain that we will be able to assemble a squad at Wembley on this day and failing to deliver this match at the last minute is not an option.”

“Before Covid we had a full match schedule planned for the All Whites, and we have been proactive in finding matches for the team since the outage, but unfortunately it is not possible to do the new games that we have scheduled for this time.” happen the year.

“We are now looking forward to the international window of March 2021 when we begin our qualification campaign for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.”

All Whites coach Danny Hay was disappointed by the cancellation.

“I’m devastated, and I know the players will be too, but this is one of those situations where we can’t do anything about it.

“We always knew when planning these encounters that certain players would not be available, but considering the restrictions currently in place, as well as the increasing number of Covid-19 cases in Europe, it is simply not possible to form a competitive team.

“We all want to play more games, but facing one of the best teams in the world with a team with much less strength does not help our development in the long term.”

The news follows the cancellation of the All Whites’ match against world No. 1 Belgium, which was canceled last month.