The Federal
Government says it has formally protested the denial of visa to members
of the nation's U-17 female basketball team by Spain.
Addressing State
House reporters yesterday, Sports Solomon Dalung said he had earlier
visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to officially protest the
treatment given to Nigeria.
Dalung, who said
the reasons given by the Embassy of Spain were not genuine, recalled
that having qualified in Madagasca for the event, the Nigerian female
basketball players were denied visa after fulfilling all the
requirements.
He said: "One,
they claimed that the letter requesting for visa was signed by a dead
person. I had in my office today invited the author of the letter and
he's a living person. The second reason was that the list sent was
padded and that there was an attempt to smuggle some people and traffic
them across the border. The list that was brought to me today which I
still have here is not up to 18 (12 and 7 officials) and these were the
people that went to Madagasca for competition and there was nothing like
padding in it.
"The last reason
was that it was out of time or it was brought in short notice. This one
too did not stand the test of the investigation I did. This is why we've
protested officially to the Embassy and I've written the international
federation the treatment they gave to us. I guess it will not take too
long, we still insist on getting visa from Spain for our athletes to go
and participate because if we allow this to go on, then we're opening
the gate for other countries to use this technique of disqualifying
Nigeria when they feel we're going to be a threat in any international
participation."
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