FIVB CHAMPIONSHIPS: Nigeria’s participation uncertain due to VISA hitches
Nigeria’s participation at the forthcoming FIVB U-23 Male and Female Beach Volleyball World Championships in Poland looks uncertain due to entry visa hitches, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
Chakuma Ismail, the coach of the under-23 male and female beach volleyball teams, told NAN on Tuesday that less than a week to the championships no preparations had been made.
NAN reports that the FIVB Male and Female Beach Volleyball World Championships are scheduled to hold from June 10 to June 15 in Poland.
“There is no camping programme yet, although we are supposed to travel next week.
“We have not started anything and, as it is now, we may go for the championships and we may not go.
“Because, I have been told there is a problem in securing entry visa. This is in spite of the fact that we notified the federation early enough, immediately after we qualified,” Ismail said
When contacted, Musa Nimrod, the Chairman of the Beach Volleyball Commission of the Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVBF), said the problem was rather from the embassy and not the federation.
“There is no visa processing yet. So, what are we opening camp for? In fact, all the teams from the African countries which qualified for the championships have not secured entry visa.
“This means that we are all suffering from the same problem, which is from the Polish Embassy.
“Of course, a letter came to us not quite long ago to start processing our entry visas. We did start it online then, but we were stopped along the line.
“Now, we have written to the Confederation of African Volleyball (CAVB) as expected of all countries unable to get visas.
“The NVBF Secretary-General, Adisa Beyioku, has done that. But we have not yet heard from them. So, for now, there is nothing we can do,’’ Nimrod said.
He however noted that the federation was about suffering the same fate it did in 2012 and 2013 as regards the issue of visas to travel for competitions.
“This is exactly what happened last year and two years ago, when we qualified for championships but were unable to attend because of visa problems.
“Most of these countries bid to host championships, but they will not be willing to give countries visas to attend,” Nimrod said.
The NVBF secretary-general is however still optimistic, saying the federation was ready to pick it up from where it stopped once there was a green light.
He promised that the federation would commence the visa processing once it got a reply from the Polish embassy.
“We have not heard from either CAVB or the embassy, but once we get any message from them, we will start the processing immediately,” Beyioku said.
NAN recalls that in 2012, Nigeria’s junior female team could not feature at the 2012 FIVB Swatch Junior Beach Volleyball World Championships in Canada due to visa problems.
In 2013, the same Polish Embassy denied the under-23 team visa to participate in the World U-23 Beach Volleyball Championships.
The Nigerian team was also denied visas by the Croatian and Portuguese embassies to take part in the U-21 and U-19 beach volleyball championships in Croatia and Portugal respectively. (NAN)
