Izuchukwu OkosiWorld basketball ruling body, FIBA, has released a statement on the withdrawal of the Nigeria women’s national team, D’Tigress from the 2022 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup in Sydney, Australia reports Prime Business Africa.
The Federal Government of Nigeria had banned the country’s national teams from international competitions due to internal strife in the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) albeit the ban has been reversed.
FIBA revealed that the NBBF will face penalty for the government’s decision to pull the women’s team out of the competition holding in September.
Nigeria has been replaced by Mali which were the second best ranked African team during the World Cup qualification campaign.
The statement from the FIBA’s Secretariat reads:
“The Nigerian women’s national team has been withdrawn from the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022 and replaced by Mali, as confirmed on June 2, 2022.
“The Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) will be subject to disciplinary sanctions for this withdrawal and its consequences, including on the players and the competition.”
On June 2, 2022, FIBA noted that it 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 and activities for a period of two years.
“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 in order 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 that Nigeria’s withdrawal from the FIBA Women’s World Cup 2022 is confirmed.
The statement also noted that FIBA has received no official information from the NBBF or other authorities in relation to the Nigerian men’s national team.
The men’s national team are expected to begin their World Cup qualification campaign in N ovember.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
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