Head coach of Nigeria’s senior male basketball team, Mohamed Abdulrahman, has blamed poor funding for his side’s underwhelming performance at the recently concluded 2025 FIBA AfroBasket qualifiers in Monastir, Tunisia.
The 2015 African champions had initially withdrawn from the AfroBasket qualifiers window due to the inability of the Ministry of Sports to provide the federation with the needed funds for the qualifiers but a late intervention from the ministry meant the team arrived in Tunisia on the day of the qualifiers and took to the court without much rest.
Following a disorderly build-up to Window 1 of the qualifiers in Tunisia, D’Tigers lost all their three games starting with a defeat against Libya in their opening game.
They further suffered defeats to Uganda and Cape Verde to end the qualifiers without a win.
Speaking on their uninspiring display in Tunisia, Abdulrahman blamed poor preparations due to lack of funding.
“If we get our acts together and have the necessary support in terms of funding and everything and we will prepare much earlier, we are going to be fine”, he said.
“With the same team, if we get the chance to put in some few practice sessions, we are still going to be fine. Most of the mistakes we are making we made here at the tournament and we are paying dearly for it.
“If we had some training sessions we would have taken care of those mistakes and it would have been a different ball game”.
D’Tigers, who have crashed out of the Paris Olympics and the World Cup, were paired in Group B alongside Cape Verde, Uganda and Libya, who shocked Morocco in the decisive Game 2 of the 2025 FIBA AfroBasket Zone 1 Pre-Qualifiers
Despite the recent setbacks, D’Tigers still have a chance to qualify for the AfroBasket.
The top three teams from their group will advance, and there’s still one more qualifying window in February 2025.
