Volleyball: Foreign Embassies Frustrating Us

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The Nigeria Volleyball Federation, NVBF Monday lamented the visa denial to its team, preventing it from participating in international tournaments in Poland, Croatia and Portugal.

The First Vice President of the Federation, Ebenezer Morakinyo, expressed the displeasure in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN.

He told NAN that earlier in the year, the national female beach volleyball team was denied visas by the Embassy of Poland for it to participate in the U-23 Championship in that country.

“They were also denied visas by the Croatian Embassy to take part in the U-21 Championship, “but the recent one is that of the Portuguese  Embassy, where the team ought to participate in the U-19 Championship from 11 July to 14 July in Portugal,’’ fumed Morakinyo.

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He pointed out that the Federation did all it ought to do, but to no avail. Morakinyo added that “when we applied initially, we were denied and we approached the Ministry of External Affairs to intervene and we were told to reapply, which we did. “Unfortunately, the embassy still refused the players visas, which denied them the opportunity to participate in the championship.’’“It was not as if we reapplied late or didn’t meet the conditions. I just don’t understand but the problem of visa denial isn’t applicable to volleyball alone, “If you have been following the trend of sports, there are some embassies that find one reason or the other to deny teams from Nigeria visas to travel out, at times, they come up with the excuse that they may not come back,’’ the NVBF vice president said.

He added that with the recurring situation, the National Sports Commission, NSC would have to intervene. “The NSC will have to be officially informed so that it will take it up with the Ministry of External Affairs and I am sure something will be done about it, to avoid a recurrence,  “we have been waiting for the arrival of the President of the NVBF, Habu Gumel, who went for a meeting outside the country,” “This is because if we are going to write to the NSC, he will have to endorse it, Morakinyo said.

The coach of the team, Charkuma Ismail, also told NAN that the recurring problem had been affecting the morale of the players, who would have been prepared, before the “disappointment.’’

“The team is psychologically down because we have been in camp for the past two months, preparing for the championship and at the last minute, we were denied visas, “you know what it means to have gotten players ready for a championship and at the end of the day, you will tell them to go back home, they will end up not believing in the system again, which is detrimental to the federation.’’

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