FG protests female athletes’ visa denial

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, 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 the 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