BY JOE APU
The build up towards a final 12- man list for Nigeria’s D’ Tigress ahead of the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Nantes, France continued Monday in the Abuja camp of the team with no less than seven players dropped.
Informed sources told Daily Sunsport that the players were given the news of decampment on Monday by the technical crew, urging them not to be discouraged but work harder as they stand a good chance of being in the next set of national team players.
Those affected include, Akaraiwe Nkem, Chinyere Juliet, Okeke Ebere, Umeh Gloria, Okpe Patience, Idoko Patience and Ibiam Elem.
The cut now brought to 16 the number of players left in camp from the total list of 23 players given the absence of Joyce Ekweremadu and Ify Ibekwe that failed to show up in Abuja, they are therefore out of the team if they fail to report to the camp in Turkey where the team was billed to engage the Turkey women’s national team in a double header friendly billed for May 27th and 28th respectively.
However, head coach of D’ Tigress, Scott Nnaji would neither admit nor deny the dropping of the players. According to him, a final decision was yet to be taken on the number of players that would be dropped.
Only yesterday, Daily Sunsport reported that eight players had been pencilled down for the drop.
Nigeria was drawn against Belarus and Korea in Group C for the 2016 FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament holding from June 13 through 16 in France.