Olympic Volleyball: Federation Confused Over Participation In Qualifiers

Nigeria Volleyball Federation, NVF, has been thrown into confusion on whether to participate or not in the Olympic beach volleyball qualifiers holding in Mauritius next month.

The Nigerian male beach volleyball team have been in camp, preparing to take part in the eight-nation African Beach Volleyball Olympic qualifiers in Mauritius, after qualifying for the tourney from the last phase held in Abuja last year.

While speaking on Brilla FM, the Technical Director of NVF, Tony Oguma, said the team would not participate in the qualifiers because the National Sports Commission, NSC, had excluded volleyball from the sport that Nigeria will feature at the London Games.

“We are no longer going for the qualifiers since the NSC has said there is no provision for team sports in Nigeria’s contingent to the London games,” Oguma said.

Chairman of the Nigeria Beach Volleyball Commission, Engineer Musa Nimrod, has, however, refuted Oguma’s claims that the federation would not participate in the Olympic qualifiers, the tourney that will produce two African representatives in the volleyball event at the Olympics.

The beach volleyball boss said they have already booked their hotel accommodations and have started making their travel arrangements for the qualifiers, holding on the Island nation of Mauritius.

While speaking with newsmen recently, Secretary of Nigeria Volleyball Federation, Patrick Abobi, also expressed confidence that Nigeria would qualify for the Olympics.

P.M.Sports can report authoritatively that the NSC boss, Bolaji Abdulahi, has maintained that the country will only register for events she has a fair chance of winning medals, saying that the Olympics is not for jamboree.

Volleyball is one of the sports not listed by the NSC to take part at the Olympics.

Nigeria will only take part in athletics, boxing, wrestling, weight-lifting, table tennis, taekwondo and canoeing.

—Bamidele Olowosagba