Nigerian women volleyball team has qualified for 2019 All African Games (AAG) women’s volleyball tournament to be hosted in Morocco.
This followed the failure of their West African rivals, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso to turn up for the Zone 3 Africa volleyball qualifiers for the AAG slated for Abuja from 2nd to 6th June 2019.
The president of CAVB Zone 3, Paul Atchoe, said only Nigerians who participated in the qualifier will represent African zone 3 at the All African Games in Morocco.
“Today is the day set aside for Nigeria to organise All African Game qualifier for zone 3 women teams. But on Sunday, June 2, four countries registered for the competition which include Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and host, Nigeria.
But during the technical committee meeting, none of the team was at the meeting and they didn’t send representatives to represent them at the meeting.
So, it was only Nigeria that took part in the technical committee meeting that was available for the competition to represent African Zone 3 at the All Africa Games,” he said.
With this development, Nigeria’s women volleyball team has joined their men counterparts to book their place at the quadrennial games.
Nigeria’s men volleyball team had secured their ticket to Morocco 2019 Games after beating Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Niger at CAVB Zone 3 men qualifying championship held in Abidjan last month.
The head coach of Nigeria’s senior volleyball women’s team, Usman Abdallah, described their qualification as good development for Nigeria’s volleyball and commended the Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVBF) for their support.
“The federation has created an enabling environment for Nigeria to qualify. The president is always here to watch the girls train and I think it is also a motivation to have him here all the time”.
“Right now, we do not have any professional player in the team and we will quantify the team with instruction of some foreign based professionals before the AAG,” Abdallah said.
