How Kida Incites Nigerians Against NOC Over D'Tigers, D'Tigress Poor Performances At The Olympics

How Kida Incites Nigerians Against NOC Over D'Tigers, D'Tigress Poor Performances At The Olympics By Niyi Busari Chairman, Caretaker Committee of Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) Engineer Musa Kida blamed the poor performance of D'Tigers and D'Tigress at the 2020 Olympics on Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC), BSNSports.com.ng can report. The NBBF had in a letter dated July 12, 2021, titled, 'Re: Number of Basketball Accompanying Technical Officials To The 2020 Olympics Games,' requested that the NOC gave them permission to go to the Olympics with 27 officials. The request was turned down by the NOC saying that it was against the International Olympic Committee (IOC) regulation. The IOC regulation allowed only five officials per team. Addressing the the media in Abuja on Tuesday, Kida accused the NOC and IOC of sabotaging the efforts of the two basketball teams from getting to the podium. According to him, "we were always entitled to a full complements of our officials in the Games, but after our preparations, and getting to the Olympic proper, the NOC came with the directive that we are only entitled to only 3 officials which included only two technical officials. "I was very sad to understand that they are only going to allow three of our technical officials, instead of the eight or nine which we are already used to. This actually affected the team immensely and cost us the first two games". Kida said. Meanwhile, in an exclusive interview with D'Tigers captain, Ike Diogu, blamed the poor performance of D'Tigers on non-inclusion of experienced players to Tokyo. He said, "the poor performance of D'Tigers in Tokyo was because some of the players who laboured and qualified the country for the Games were left out. And many who made the cut were going to such international competition for the first time in their careers." However, a document made available to BSN Sports showed that names of 27 officials were submitted to the NOC which they saw as move against IOC regulation and subsequently rejected. Despite taking the officials to Tokyo through the aid of the sports ministry, D'Tigers and D'Tigress lost all their games (6) at the 2020 Olympics, the worst performance recorded by Nigeria.