With the current two years ban placed on the Nigerian Basketball federation from participating in international tournaments by the Federal Government, FIBA has decided to replace D’ Tigress who had qualified after a terrific victory over France and Mali in the qualifying stage with Mali. D’ Tigress defeated Mali in the 2021 Afro basket women’s championship final to win their fifth title in history and qualify for the World Cup. Unfortunately, Mali will represent Africa at the 2022 Women’s World Cup in Sydney, Australia.
Last month, through the office of the Ministry of Youth and Sports development spearheaded by Mr Sunday Dare, the federal government approved two years of withdrawal of the Nigerian Basketball from participating in any tournament. The harsh decision was placed on the federation for their inability to resolve a lingering crisis.
It was recalled that two factions of the Leadership Committee of NBBF were elected into office on the same day during an election held in Edo and Abuja states respectively. Although FIBA in a statement affirmed the incumbent President Musa Kida and distanced itself from any other executive committee.
Over the last few weeks, there has been chaos in the NBBF between its leadership. To help relieve chaos in the federation, the Sports Ministry set up an interim committee that should take over the NBBF, rather the NBBF rejected the interim management committee describing the outcome as unconstitutional and related it to some people taking advantage of the situation for a selfish purpose.
Reacting to this the Basketball Governing Body, FIBA said:
FIBA was informed about the decision of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to withdraw the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) from all international basketball competitions in two years,” a statement from FIBA said.
“In subsequent communications with the NBBF, and despite FIBA’s request, it has become clear that against the circumstances created by the government’s decision, the NBBF is unable to confirm its participation in the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022.
“Given the multiple strict deadlines that cannot be postponed to ensure the successful staging of a major international event (visa procedures, schedules, ticket sales, accommodations, friendly games, preliminary rosters, flight tickets, accreditations, etc.) and to protect the integrity of the competition, the FIBA Executive Committee has decided as follows:
“Nigeria’s withdrawal from the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022 is confirmed. Mali, as the next ranked team from Group B of the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022 Qualifying Tournament in Belgrade, is invited to participate in the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022
“FIBA will announce whether there will be any other decisions related to the NBBF’s participation in other FIBA competitions and any potential disciplinary measures in due course.”
