Nigeria will not be going ahead with planned friendlies against Venezuela and Colombia in the USA next month, after the Super Eagles qualified for the World Cup playoffs which take place in Morocco at the same time.
The NFF had announced the two games last month, with the Super Eagles scheduled to play Venezuela on November 14 at the Shell Energy Stadium in Houston and Colombia on November 18 at Citi Field in New York.
Tickets for both games were already on sale, but a top NFF official told ESPN at the time that the games were conditional on the team's World Cup fate, and would only proceed if Nigeria avoided being drawn into the CAF World Cup playoff round, either by qualifying directly for the World Cup, or failing to make it entirely.
Last week, the Super Eagles beat Benin Republic to qualify for the World Cup playoffs, which take place from November 13 to 16, and officials told ESPN that the friendlies had now been shelved.
"We had a clause in the contract for the games covering this eventuality, if we qualified for the playoffs," an official told ESPN. "So we will not be going ahead with the matches any more.
"Our goal is to concentrate on the playoffs now and qualify from Africa and then focus on the intercontinental playoffs."
Also qualified for the CAF playoffs are Cameroon, Congo DR and Gabon.
Nigeria, on 41, are the highest-ranked of the four teams in the Africa playoffs. They will play Gabon, who are the lowest-ranked team at 77. The winner of that encounter plays the winner of the other semifinal between Cameroon (ranked 54) and Congo DR (ranked 60) for Africa's sole ticket to the intercontinental playoffs in Mexico in March.
For Nigeria, the playoffs would also serve as early preparation for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco. The Super Eagles, runners-up at the 2023 tournament in Ivory Coast, begin their Group C campaign against Tanzania on December 23 in Fez before facing Tunisia and Uganda.