Barring any change of arrangement, Nigeria’s Senior Basketball National Team, D’Tigers, will next month confront their Venezuela counterparts in an international match organized to honour former Venezuela President, Hugo Chavez, who died on March 5, 2013, at the age of 58 years following a long battle with cancer.
President Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF), Alhaji Tijani Umar, who disclosed this to Blueprint Sport in Abuja said already the federation had agreed to honour the friendly game i the Venezuela Embassy in Nigeria is still in talks with the National Sports Commission (NSC) to finalize necessary arrangements.
Umar added that currently, talks are to initiate bilateral sports partnership between the two countries.
He said: “To me, we have so many things we can do together in the area of basketball with Venezuelan government. Next month has been tentatively slated for the friendly match holding here in Abuja. We have agreed in principle with talks still ongoing. By the time we finalize plans then the date will be fixed.”
In the build-up to last Olympic Games when Nigeria’s D’Tigers qualified to participate at the global jamboree for the first time, the country’s senior National Men team faced Venezuela, USA and Lithuania. Though Venezuela defeated Nigeria, D’Tigers went on to beat USA and Lithuania against predictions to pick one of the tickets to the Olympic.
On the Nigerian players especially those who are based abroad are faring, the NBBF president assured “we are in constant touch with our players in Nigeria and abroad. Some days ago, I spoke with Farouk who told me he could be coming to Nigeria during the summer break.
