The Nigerian women’s amputee football team, the Special Falcons, have withdrawn of the maiden edition of the Women’s Amputee Football World Cup currently taking place in Barranquilla, Colombia, Afrosport reports.
The Special Falcons were drawn in Group C of the inaugural event and were expected to battle it out with Ecuador, the United States and Ukraine, and had been training in the Nigerian federal capital city of Abuja towards the big event.
They will however not partake in the tournament following the refusal of the Colombian embassy to grant the team visas into the country due to a lack of adequate funding to process the visas in timely manner.
Nigeria was not the only team to suffer this fate, with the Cameroon women’s amputee football team also withdrawing after failing to get their visas processed in time after they were scheduled to take on Brazil, Poland and tournament hosts Colombia in Group A.
Nigeria and Cameroon’s exit means the number of teams at the first-ever Women’s Amputee Football World Cup has been reduced from 12 to 10.
The Kenya Amputee Women team is the only African team left in the competition and they will play alongside England, Haiti and Peru in Group B.
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Their campaign already began on Monday when they played out a goalless draw with Haiti while England thumped Peru 6-0 and Ecuador defeated Ukraine 2-1.
