Tijani Umar, the President of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, says Nigeria’s loss in its bid for one of the wildcards for the 2014 world championship will rather spur it.
Umar was reacting on Sunday in Abuja to the selection of Brazil, Greece, Turkey and Finland for wildcards for participation at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup in Spain.
Nigeria is one of the 15 countries which applied to the International Basketball Federation for the four wildcards.
The four winners will join 20 others, who had qualified previously, to feature at the 24-team World Cup.
The winners were on Saturday announced at the meeting of FIBA’s Central Board in Barcelona, Spain, with Nigeria not one of them.
Umar however said the loss would not affect NBBF’s programmes, but rather encourage it to work harder and ensure Nigeria qualifies directly for major competitions in 2015 and 2016.
He said: “FIBA has already taken a decision and all the countries had earlier agreed that we will abide by the outcome of the meeting.
“And, I am sure FIBA made the best selection.
“But this will not affect our programmes.
“We will work harder to ensure that we qualify for tournaments, instead of waiting for wildcards.
“Now, it means we have to start getting ready for the qualifiers for the 2015 Afrobasket Championship, which is also the qualification for the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.
“We were at the London Olympics in 2012, and with the way things are now going, maybe we are destined for the Olympics again.
“So, we will work hard to qualify for the 2015 Afrobasket and be at the Olympics in 2016.”
The NBBF president added that he was however happy that Nigeria had been showcased to the world, through the application for the wildcard and was not disturbed by the loss.
Umar said: “The most important thing is that we have been able to make a case for Nigeria and show to the world that we belong among the best teams in the world.
“We should have qualified from the African Championship last year, but sometimes it is not necessarily the best teams that will win.
“It was in order to catch up with the momentum we had in 2012 at the Olympics that we decided to apply for the wildcard and we satisfied the criteria just like the other countries.
“So, it is a good one for us because we were even the only African country which applied for the wildcard.”
The FIBA Basketball World Cup will take place in Spain from August 30 to September 14.
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