New Zealand withdraw from England friendly due to coronavirus 'complications'
Oct 14, 2020
Auckland [New Zealand], October 14 : New Zealand Football (NZF) on Wednesday announced that its team will not travel to England for the friendly match, slated to take place next month, due to coronavirus complications.
The match was scheduled to take place on November 12 at Wembley.
"New Zealand Football are disappointed to confirm that they are withdrawing from their All Whites fixture against England on 12 November (13 November NZ time) due to further travel and player availability complications caused by Covid-19," NZF said in a statement.
England also confirmed New Zealand's withdrawal and said they will announce replacement opposition in due course.
"We can confirm New Zealand's withdrawal from next month's international friendly. We will announce replacement opposition in due course," England tweeted.
NZF CEO Andrew Pragnell said it is not an action taken lightly and it is with deep regret that they cancel their participation.
"It is with deep regret that we have been forced to cancel our participation in the upcoming match against England at Wembley. It is not an action taken lightly, this is a match we all wanted to play, however, as it stands of the last All Whites squad selected for the November 2019 tour, even excluding the New Zealand based players, a significant number of the team would be subject to quarantine or restrictions on their return home," Pragnell said in a statement.
"This would heavily disrupt their domestic seasons and potentially jeopardise their professional careers. The shifting nature of travel restrictions and commercial flight availability under Covid means that we do not have certainty we could assemble a squad at Wembley on this day and defaulting on this fixture at the last minute is not an option," he added.
