Former champions D'Tigers of Nigeria have withdrawn from the 2025 FIBA AfroBasket qualifiers that had been as a result of begin in Tunisia this weekend. Nigeria has been drawn into Group B of the 2025 AfroBasket Qualifiers alongside Cape Verde, Libya and Uganda.
The workforce introduced its withdrawal from the pre-championship match because of the lack of ability of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) to safe the mandatory funding from the Federal Authorities.
A supply near NBBF president Musa Kida informed The Guardian yesterday that the federation couldn’t discover the cash to purchase aircraft tickets for workforce members, who’re unfold throughout the USA and Europe.
Earlier in a tweet in its official It learn: “Regardless of a number of Olympians having dedicated in 2020, D'Tigers will forfeit this AfroBasket qualifying interval as a result of an absence of funding from the federal government.”
This isn’t the primary time that funding has allegedly hampered Nigeria's participation in a significant championship. Early this 12 months, the NBBF thought-about withdrawing the ladies's nationwide workforce, D'Tigress, from taking part within the qualifiers for the 2024 Olympic Video games in Paris. However the federation later secured authorities funding to ship the women to Belgium, the place they certified for the Video games.
An NBBF official lamented that the Federal Authorities has all the time given preferential remedy to soccer on the expense of different sports activities, pointing to the latest $12.5 billion given to the Nigerian Soccer Federation forward of the simply concluded Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d'Ivory.
The ultimate interval of those qualifiers will happen from February 17 to 25, 2025 in international locations but to be decided
