Nigeria Daily News: Nigeria‘ll not attend World Cadet Challenge, says NTTF

Nigeria‘ll not attend World Cadet Challenge, says NTTF
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Staff  on 18/10/2012 07:47:00


Lagos – The Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) says it will not send a
team to the forthcoming World Cadet Challenge Championships holding in Mangilao,
Central Guam, from Oct. 27 to Nov.  4.
Segun Oguntade, the NTTF Secretary, explained in an interview with the News
Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos that this was because the
federation did not send a team to qualifying championships held in April in
Tipaza, Algeria.
Oguntade attributed the non participation at the qualifiers to failure of the
federation to receive prompt and positive responses from the various companies
it had approached for sponsorship.
“We are not part of the World Cadet Challenge due to our failure to be at the
qualifying tournament. This is because we were not able to secure sponsors for
the event,’’ he said.
NAN reports that the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and Africa
Junior Championships organised the qualifiers for the World Cadet Challenge
Championships.
Oguntade also noted that the proposed National Open Championships, planned for
Abuja later in the month, would no longer hold, attributing its indefinite
postponement to the forthcoming 18th National Sports Festival (NSF) holding from
Nov. 27 to Dec. 9 in Lagos.
“The NSF is the centre of attraction now. It is taking precedence over our
national programmes of which the national championship is a part,’’ he
added.
Oguntade urged corporate organisations and ping-pong enthusiasts across the
country to stake their money to sponsor the sport for players to have exposures
at international circuits.
He also said regular participation at international events was all that players
would require toward boosting their ranking in Africa and at the ITTF level.
(NAN)
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