The Nigeria Basketball Federation has said that it does not owe any team in the DStv League contrary to claims made by some of the teams that they were owed certain amounts of money. The NBBF president, Mr. Tijjani Umar, who put a call through to The PUNCH on Monday, said it was wrong for any club in the league to claim that they were being owed after the federation had fulfilled their own part of the bargain with them for the regular season.
He said, “We have no money for any team whatsoever because we do not owe any of the clubs. What we said before the league started was that we would pay them for the regular season and then for the final-four playoffs. That is very clear. We have not started the final-four and so people can only complain if they are not paid when the event holds.
“We have just rounded off the regular season and picked the teams from each of the conferences for the playoffs. Everything that has taken place so far are part of the regular season.”
By the weekend, some teams including Dodan Warriors had complained of being short-changed by the federation as they said that there was an agreement that the teams were to get N250,000 before the commencement of the conference playoffs. The Atlantic and Savannah conferences held intra-conference playoffs to produce the top four teams for the final playoffs. They had insisted that they would not take the jump ball unless they were paid.
But Umar told our correspondent that everything that happened with the pre-match meeting in Lagos was deliberately done to put the federation in bad light by those he said had lost relevance to the game of basketball in Nigeria.
“We are used to such antics being put forward by those who want to receive attention. Our sponsors have confidence in the federations and so are the teams. It is a few irrelevant voices that we have always heard for years but we do not want to give them attention,” he said.
He said, “We have no money for any team whatsoever because we do not owe any of the clubs. What we said before the league started was that we would pay them for the regular season and then for the final-four playoffs. That is very clear. We have not started the final-four and so people can only complain if they are not paid when the event holds.
“We have just rounded off the regular season and picked the teams from each of the conferences for the playoffs. Everything that has taken place so far are part of the regular season.”
By the weekend, some teams including Dodan Warriors had complained of being short-changed by the federation as they said that there was an agreement that the teams were to get N250,000 before the commencement of the conference playoffs. The Atlantic and Savannah conferences held intra-conference playoffs to produce the top four teams for the final playoffs. They had insisted that they would not take the jump ball unless they were paid.
But Umar told our correspondent that everything that happened with the pre-match meeting in Lagos was deliberately done to put the federation in bad light by those he said had lost relevance to the game of basketball in Nigeria.
“We are used to such antics being put forward by those who want to receive attention. Our sponsors have confidence in the federations and so are the teams. It is a few irrelevant voices that we have always heard for years but we do not want to give them attention,” he said.
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