BY GEORGE SIPPLE

Organizers for the Green Soccer Bowl confirmed this morning that the event has been canceled less than a week before it was to be held at the Silverdome.

Five international teams initially were scheduled to meet over the weekend of Feb. 12; then the matches were switched to May 21-23 with teams from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Malaysia and Puerto Rico participating.

Then the event was downsized to a one-day event. Four area youth soccer teams were supposed to play exhibition games, followed by Kenya vs. Malaysia at 4 p.m. Sunday.

"We’ve canceled,” said Pius Oleh, a former defenseman for Nigeria’s senior national team who created the event. “All the teams didn’t get a visa."

Oleh said ticket buyers will be issued refunds. He said he didn’t know how many tickets had been sold. For more information, visit www.greensoccerbowl.com.

Ghana was supposed to use the Green Soccer Bowl as a tune-up before playing in the World Cup in June.

When the event was announced in February, it was met with skepticism by those in the local soccer community. Roger Faulkner, president of the 1994 FIFA World Cup Detroit host committee, wondered about Ghana’s involvement.

“I’m surprised that Ghana would send their whole national squad over here to play a game on artificial turf a month before the (World Cup) games are played in South Africa, but apparently that’s the case,” Faulkner said at the time.

Faulkner said Andreas Apostolopoulos, the Toronto real estate developer who recently bought the Silverdome in an auction for $583,000, was "a very enthusiastic soccer supporter, and I think we’ll probably see some major events at the Silverdome in the future.”

The Silverdome hosted first-round games in the 1994 World Cup and was home to the Detroit Express of the now-defunct North American Soccer League in 1978-80.

Oleh said he has begun working on plans to hold the event in 2011. "We are using this week to do planning for the 2011 event, to make sure what happened to cause the teams to not get visas doesn’t happen again next year," he said.

Oleh said the teams applied for visas less than two months in advance and would apply four or five months in advance next year.