Lack of Fund threatens D’Tigress African title defence

Fund threatens D’Tigress African title defence

By Admin

The national women’s basketball team and African champions D’Tigress are programmed to depart Lagos for Dakar on Monday, August 5th but that plan is now doubtful as the Nigeria Basketball Federation is yet to raise the needed fund to execute the trip.

The Vice President of NBBF, Babs Ogunade confirmed to Extrasportsnigeria.com yesterday that cash was still far from being available for the 2019 AfroBasket for Women billed to start in Senegal August 10. The Nigeria women won the last competition held two years ago in Mali.

Ogunade said, “The main challenge now is how to get the team (D’Tigress) to Dakar and it is a real problem. There’s no fund available for now. We have never had it this challenging and it is quite a battle get the team going.

“It is tough like this because we have virtually all the competitions holding so close to each other.”

The sports ministry serves as the last resort for many of the federations even though the NBBF board has embarked on quite elaborate self funding and corporate sponsorship in the past three years. They are hoping this time that the sports ministry could be of help.

“What we have been told by the ministry is to hold on but I can’t for now say how much that could translate to,” Ogunade added.