ILORIN – Coach Okwor Sylvester of Coal City basketball club, has blamed funding for their loss in all seven matches at the second phase of the Zenith Bank National Women Basketball League.
Sylvester told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ilorin on Friday after the Enugu-based women basketball team’s last match at the competition that financial problem hampered their performance.
The team lost 29-62 against Plateau Rocks in their Group B encounter at the competition held at the Indoor Sports Hall of the Kwara State Stadium.
The losses meant that Coal City did not qualify for the final eight play-offs of the league.
“My players tried their best in this phase. Some of them are still in the secondary school. But our major problem is that we don’t have financial help.
“Also, transportation is a problem for us. We don’t have a bus of our own, we board public transport.
“As for training, we don’t have a permanent camp, and the players come from their different homes, which is far and a predicament for some of them.
“At times, most of them don’t come to training and they complain of not having transportation fare.
“So, help is not coming from anywhere. If not for somebody like Mrs Ekene Ugwoke, the wife of the Commissioner for Youths and Sports, who helps us at times, things would have been worse,’’ Sylvester told NAN.
The Coal City coach however expressed optimism that the club would put up a better performance if they got sponsorship before next season.
“Right now, some of our players are writing their examinations and some are working, and we cannot take somebody away from her place of work when we cannot pay her.
“So, hopefully, when we get sponsors, we will get better next season, because we have players that can do it for us. They just need to be lifted in terms of morale.
“Presently, they are trying. But they need more training for them to be together, because most of the times, its only three or four of them that comes for training, and that is why team work is lacking in our play,” Sylvester said.
The second phase of the league which ends Friday, May 9 started on Friday, May 2 with 16 teams divided into Group A and Group B.
Only eight teams — four from each group — will qualify for the final eight play-offs in Lagos in June.(NAN)
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