By Victor Okoye
Abuja, April 22, 2024 (NAN) Musa Kida, the President of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF), has appealed to the federal government to release funds early for the participation of D’Tigress at the Paris Olympics.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Nigeria women’s national basketball team, D’Tigress, qualified for the women’s basketball event of the 2024 Olympics in Paris in February.
This is the third time D’Tigress will qualify for the Olympic Games, having also competed at the Athens 2004 and Tokyo 2020 editions of the tournament.
Kida told newsmen in Abuja on Monday that the federation had made plans to ensure that the team have adequate preparation ahead of the summer Olympic games in Paris.
While reeling out the programmes of the federation for the year, Kida lamented that paucity of funds had hindered it from carrying out all its activities seamlessly.
He disclosed that years of internal wrangling had cost the NBBF much in terms of sponsorship and funding, calling on the federal government to release funds early for the participation of the women’s team in Paris.
He said there were plans for three phases of camping for the Nigerian girls.
“There would be reparation camping in Nigeria to Ghana with the pool that we have within the country.
“The second camp will be in the US for the people who are playing in the US and the environments there. And then the last part of the camp which would be for the selected team basically.
“So we have three phases that we are looking at and I think with that kind of preparation, we do hope that our performance will be more outstanding than the last time that we went to the Olympics,” he said.
D’Tigress have won the last four editions of FIBA Women’s AfroBasket championships, showing their dominance in the African continent.
The NBBF said there are also plans to bring in more players to make the team stronger ahead of the Games.
However, Kida hinted that there would be no massive overhauling of the technical crew of the team apart from a few technical assistants requested by the team’s coach, Rena Wakama.
NAN reports that the 2024 Olympics is billed for July 26–Aug.11 in Paris.(NAN)
