The Nigeria Football Federation Director of Protocols Emmanuel Ayabunmi has reiterated that the Spanish Embassy in Nigeria actually denied the National U15 team entry visas to the European country to participate in the ongoing UEFA U16 Developmental Invitational Tournament holding from 11 to 17 April exclusivenews.com.ng reports.

Ayabunmi who was reacting to a trending news  from the Spanish Consulate  that the football federation wrote a letter withdrawing the passports of the players and officials, said that was not the true position of things.

Quoting his words Ayabunmi said "  the statement from the Consulate of the Spanish embassy was far from the truth. There is no time the NFF wrote to the Embassy withdrawing the players and officials passport after paying huge amounts of money for the processing of the visas".

" What happened was that applications were submitted early enough, and on Monday when our protocol officer in Lagos was expected to pick up the Passports with Visas, they demanded for an authorisation letter  which was  given to him, duly signed by the General Secretary of the NFF Dr Mohammed Sanusi. The letter stated clearly that the officer is authorised to collect the passports and visas. But, unfortunately they returned the passports to him without visas, while the boys were expected to travel on that Tuesday night, and there was a long holiday extending throughout the week when the tournament must have started".

Ayabunmi said the NFF really wanted the team to participate in tournament, reasons why they kept them in camp at Remo Training Centre and took them to Morocco for friendly matches, but unfortunately the Spanish Embassy refused to issue them entry visas even when the organisers formally intimated them of Nigeria's participation in the tournament.