England’s hopes of a showdown with New Zealand later this year are over after the All Blacks opted to fulfil their planned fixture with the Barbarians on 4 November instead.

The RFU has admitted defeat in attempting to bring forward a meeting between the world’s top two ranked sides, instead giving its approval to the Barbarians fixture, which will be played at Twickenham. A spokesperson for the governing body said: “We explored whether there was an opportunity to play New Zealand this year, but they have chosen to play the Barbarians.”

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The New Zealand Rugby Union intends to celebrate its 125th anniversary with a fixture against the Barbarians and has rejected advances from the RFU. The rest of England’s autumn schedule is booked, with matches against Argentina, Samoa and Australia, and so there is no viable date to play the All Blacks. It means that New Zealand and England, ranked first and second in the world, will meet just once – probably in November 2018 – before the 2019 World Cup, having not played each other since 2014.

The RFU has faced accusations that its motives for pursuing the match with the All Blacks were financial and it has been suggested that the Barbarians were being strong-armed out of the picture, but John Spencer, chairman of the invitational side, said: “The entire Barbarians committee would like to thank the RFU for approving this fixture against New Zealand.

“The Barbarians have a strong and very collaborative relationship with the RFU, and any suggestion that the RFU has not acted correctly in any part of the discussions around staging this fixture is unfair and wrong.”

After his side’s defeat by Ireland last Saturday, Eddie Jones confirmed that he was “very keen” for the match to take place but while the RFU has previously confirmed it was pursuing the possibility of playing the match, the governing body had acknowledged there were a number of obstacles to overcome.

The NZRU would have most likely demanded up to £3m – 50% of the gate receipts from Twickenham – and Premiership clubs would have wanted a similar figure as the match would have fallen outside the agreed international window. It is also unclear how eager the All Blacks were to face England – the RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie did himself no favours when telling New Zealand “If they want money go build a stadium”– while the All Blacks have focused their commercial efforts on the north American market amid continued wranglings over the global calendar.