NBBF Plans Four Teams For Promotion, Relegation
By Andah John with agency report
Beginning from next season, four teams could earn promotion to Nigeria’s top-flight basketball league, while four could go down, as the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) is thinking in this direction.
NBBF president Tijani Umar made this known to journalists during the annual board meeting of the federation in Abuja.
Umar explained that the country’s basketball body desires more room for upcoming players to have aspiration in the league and beyond.
“We are going to have two teams relegated from each conference and we will promote two teams from each conference to the next level, otherwise everyone will get stuck in one place.
“We also hope to re-introduce the `Double header’, that is, teams playing away twice when they travel out and to re-introduce the inter-conference road trips, intercontinental travels.
“For the Zenith, we are planning to increase the number of games they will be playing instead of playing three cities, they will be playing in six cities,” he said;” he said.
The NBBF boss further explained that the federation have yet to consider breaking Zenith League, (the women professional leagues) to divisions because it realised the need to encourage mentoring.
“ If you separate the good ones from the bad ones, how will the bad ones get better. Where is the hand holding.
“ We want to increase their playing period from three months to six months,” he said.
Plans to grow the game
On how the federation intended to promote basketball in 2017 and beyond, the president said “ I believe we will have more money to organise better in 2017.
“DSTV has involved a lot of interests but we need more money on the table. I believe in 2017, we will have more money for more programmes to do the nation proud,” he said.
