Nigeria - Likely Shake-Up in NBBF

From allafrica.com
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Following the disgraceful performance of the Nigerian Basketball teams at both continental and world championship level in recent times, the nation's sports authorities have initiated moves to look into the poor outings with a view to embarking on a radical re-organisation at the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF).

It was authoritatively gathered during the weekend by Leadership Sports that the impending shake-up in NBBF is an apt measure following the game's authorities displeasure with the country's woeful performance at the just concluded Africa's Women Basketball Championship in Dakar, Senegal, and the Africa Basketball Championship also held in Angola and the U-19 FIBA World Championship in Serbia, as well as the embarrassed outing of the nation's basketball team at the last All Africa Games held in Algiers, Algerian capital. This is despite reports that millions of naira were made available to NBBF to prosecute the championships according to expectation.

What particularly irked the nation's sports authorities, according to our source who pledged anonymity, was the comparatively commendable performance of other countries that participated in the competition. "Nigeria's performance in the last three competitions both at the continental and the world level is nothing to write home about, and the authorities are planning to constitute a panel to probe the teams failure.

"What is particularly annoying to the authorities were the abysmal performance of our female and male senior national teams, De Tiger and De Tigress in their respective Africa Cup of Nations held in Senegal and Angola. We are particularly worried by the way the Nigerian teams were knocked out of these championships by small countries who have low pedigree in the game of basketball. We are told that some alleged factors contributed to the woeful performance.

"The whole process is embarrassing, because if you realise that Nigeria were knocked out of African Championship in Angola by country like Cape Verde and the female team, De Tigress who were the defending champions went to defend to the title, but got knocked out by Mozambique. So, I don't think the authorities would allow it go free," he lamented.

According to our source, the impending panel if constituted will take a holistic measure in ensuring that all the factors that led to the teams' failure are uncovered. "Never have we had it so bad in a long time for basketball. I believe the panel if constituted will take a serious measure to get to the root of all the factors that contributed to the teams failure.