The proposed friendly between a local selection and Serie A side Messina was called off at the last minute yesterday after the MFA did not issue the required permission.

The match was to have been played at the Hibs Ground tomorrow at 8pm and the organisers said they also had the official blessing of the Italian Football Federation to stage the match.

Earlier yesterday, the organisers had also announced the names of the players to form part of the local selection. They were all selected by viewers of the Net TV programme on Sundays ‘Replay’.

However, players of the national team squad, were not granted permission to join and play for this selection.

These included Brian Said, Roderick Briffa, Ian Ciantar, Ian Azzopardi, Claude Mattocks, Steve Wellman, Gilbert Agius, Antoine Zahra, Andrew Cohen and Ivan Woods.

The local selection would have included the following players: Mario Muscat, Murphy Akanji,Roderick Sammut, R. Gango Rtsa, Andre Schembri, Essiem Mbong, Cleaven Frendo, Jeffrey Chetcuti, Stefan Giglio, Daniel Bogdanovic, Gaetan Spiteri, Udo Nwoko, Terence Scerri, Paul Fenech, Roderick Bajada and Nigerian striker O. Babatunde, among others.

Italian Mario Petrone, who had coached Msida SJ last season, was to lead the Malta side against Messina.