Paucity of funds stalls NBBF’s preparations for Paris 2024 Olympics qualifiers

D’Tigress celebrates 2023 FIBA Afrobasket win over Senegal in Rwanda

The Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) has said that its preparations for the forthcoming Paris 2024 Olympic Games qualifiers is being stalled by delay in getting the necessary funds from the Ministry of Sports.

Nigeria is drawn against world champions, the United States, Senegal and hosts, Belgium in the qualifying campaign billed for Antwerp, Belgium, in February. But preparations for that championship has not taken off with less than six weeks to go because the NBBF doesn’t have the money for it yet.

A member of the NBBF Media Committee, Maxwell Kumuyi, said the Ministry of Sports, which is in charge of all the Olympic Games qualifiers, will decide when D’Tigress would start camping for the championship, as well as training programme.

He said that the NBBF would only work with the funds approved by the sports ministry for the qualifiers, which will run from February 8 to 11, 2024 in four different cities, Antwerp in Belgium, China, Sopron in Hungary and Belem in Brazil.

China, France, New Zealand and a team from the Americas will fight for the qualifying tickets in Group 1 of the series, while Nigeria, U.S., Senegal and Belgium are in Group 2.

France have already qualified for the Olympics by virtue of the games set to hold in Paris.

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