Nigeria qualifies for beach volleyball championships

Nigeria’s male and female senior teams have qualified for the 2017 World Beach Volleyball Championships scheduled to hold in Egypt.

Maikano Adamu, secretary-general, Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVBF) told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja that the date for the championship has not been fixed.

The teams campaigned for the tickets at the qualifiers held in Cotonou, Cameroon from March 11 to March 13.

They competed against teams from Togo, Niger, Cameroon and Benin Republic, with Nigeria parading two teams each in both the male and female categories.

Both Nigerian female and male teams finished first in the female and male categories.

Speaking on the teams’ success, Adamu said the competition was a good one and that the federation was happy with the performance.

He said the win would help to improve the country’s rating on the continent.

“We expected the teams to do well. The federation has been praying very seriously for this win and thank God we made it,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, the NVBF has adopted modalities to commence a national league soon.

Habu Gumel, president of NVBF, said that the national league was of importance to federations.

“The league is very important to any national federation.

“We have agreed on how we can do the league through the zones so that we come up to the national and that league is going to start very soon.

“We have adopted the system we are going to use and now we have written to sponsors and we believe most likely that we are going to get sponsors that will sponsor the league.’’

Gumel said that the federation had already written letters to some states and companies seeking sponsorship for its 2017 championship in both the indoor and beach games.

He said that Nigeria would host the zones championship of volleyball to which no fewer than nine countries would attend in Lagos.

The NVBF president said a date has yet to be fixed for the championship which would feature over 150 participants.

“So many programmes are lined up for this year which we have discussed but the most important thing is to ensure that we get good sponsors that can help us so that we can finish all these programmes without any problem.

“I want to seize this opportunity to appeal to the private sector to please support sports because government cannot do it alone.

“Government has so many sectors to take care of; so naturally, the private sector will have to compliment the effort of government.’’