The Nigeria Men Basketball Team has revealed that the Federation are now making last minute attempts ahead of the Qualifiers on Friday.
This is an update after the Nigeria Basketball Team had earlier announced on Wednesday night via its official X Handle (formerly known as Twitter) that ”Despite several 2020 Olympians committing, DTigers will forfeit this Afrobasket Qualifiers windows due to lack of funds from the Government”. DTigers posted few hours after the announcement that NBBF is now making attempts for DTigers to play on Friday in the Qualifiers.
It was reported on Tuesday that the players are yet to receive their flight tickets to Tunisia which is the venue for the first window of the qualification tournament. The Qualifiers is billed to start on Friday February 23rd 2024 and Nigeria are in Group B alongside Cape Verde and Uganda. It would be recalled that in May 2022, the Federal Government announced the withdrawal of Nigeria from all international basketball competitions for two years due to the crisis that crippled the development of basketball in the country in form of the leadership crisis at the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF).
In 2023, the team failed to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics after losing to Mali 77-68 which dashed their hopes of qualification at the EKO Convention Centre, Lagos.
