The elite national female league in Nigeria, the Zenith Bank League has been confirmed to take the jump ball on the 25th of this month. The Vice President of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) Mr. Muktar Malone Khaleh confirmed the date in an interview with FIBA Africa.
“We have chosen 25th of June as start off date after a thorough review of the entire calendar and circumstances. And barring any hitches we’ll start on that date. We can hardly afford to take further delay because of the international engagements between July and September,” Muktar said.
Before the weekend, the Federation had distributed letters to the teams in line with the date and other schedules yet to be accomplished this season. The NBBF official said that talks were already holding with the title sponsors to ensure that the take off is smooth. The Zenith League which was billed to start in February by the last board of the Federation by suffered serious delay when the National Sports Commission (NSC) dissolved all sporting federations in Nigeria and failed to conduct fresh elections until last month. The inauguration of the boards which was also delayed has now been fixed for the 9th of this month in Abuja, the country’s capital city.
Ten teams will compete in the league including new team First Deepwater Club which took over the franchise of Dodan Amazons. The other teams are champions First Bank, Dolphins, Delta Force, Nigeria Customs and Sunshine Angels. The others are FCT Angels, AHIP Queens and Nigeria Immigration.
BY Pius Ayinor
FIBA Africa