THE Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) on Sunday said it has petitioned the Federation of International Basketball Associations (FIBA) Africa over Nigeria’s first leg match in the 2015 Afrobasket qualifiers.
A statement from Akinkunle Bolarinwa, Media Officer of the national basketball team, D’Tigers, said the petition followed the inability of the Burkina Faso Basketball Federation (BBF) to host the match.
According to the statement, the qualifier has now been put on hold until further notice due to lack of commitment from the BBF.
“According to a report from FIBA Africa, there has been no concrete information from Burkina Faso concerning their willingness to host the tie.
“To this end, the NBBF has therefore requested that the Burkinabes forfeit the game according to the stipulated FIBA rules and regulations,’’ the statement said.
Newsmen reports that Burkina Faso were to host the first encounter between the weekend of February 20 to February 22.
Nigeria were scheduled to host the return leg a week later.
But BBF has kept the NBBF in the dark on the details of the match, after their request to host both legs of the encounter was turned down by NBBF.
The statement added that the NBBF also implored FIBA Africa to compel the BBF to pay the cost incurred in preparing the Nigerian team.
“The NBBF is imploring FIBA Africa to compel BBF to pay all costs incurred during the period of preparing the D’Tigers for the failed first leg encounter,’’ it said.
The statement however added that the NBBF was not ready to decamp the players because of the four-nation tournament coming up in South Africa in March.