Charles Ibeziakor, the Head Coach, Raptors Basketball Club of Lagos, on Thursday urged the leadership of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) to come up with early plans for the 2019 season.
Ibeziakor said in Lagos that he was dissatisfied with how things went in 2018 where the national women/men leagues were hurriedly done.
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“I am surprised that so far, we have yet to hear from the NBBF on how and when the 2019 basketball season would dunk off.
Last year the federation was so preoccupied with organising the national teams for the Women’s World Championship and the Men’s World Cup qualifications which in turn delayed the leagues.
We want the NBBF to roll out plans for the year so that we would know where we are going,’’ Ibeziakor said.
Defending NBBF, its Media Coordinator, Afolabi Oni, said that currently they were focused on preparing the national team for the forthcoming final phase of the FIBA Africa World Cup qualifications.
He said that the NBBF was also working round the clock to ensure that there would not be a repeat of what happened last year as regards the national leagues.
“Right now, we are focused on getting the national men’s team, D’Tigers ready for the final phase of the World Cup qualifiers coming up in February in Cote d’Ivoire.
We are also little constrained by the coming national general elections where most of our sponsors are also waiting to see happens before they commit themselves.
We are, however, positive that there would not be a delay in organising the national leagues as soon as the elections are over,’’ Oni said.
He added that there world be an annual stakeholders meeting in Abuja and in Lagos where basketball faithful would convene and signal the start of a new season.
Oni said that the stakeholders meeting would come up in March. (NAN)
