The head coach of national basketball team, Cheikh Sarr has confirmed that China-based Prince Ibeh will not be with the national team at the forthcoming FIBA World Cup qualifiers scheduled to take place from February 25-27, in Dakar, Senegal.

In an exclusive interview, Sarr told Times Sport said that Ibeh will miss the qualifiers because a lengthy quarantine period of two weeks imposed in Taiwan (China) would delay him from joining the national team camp.

"He won’t make it because he is playing in Taiwan (China) where a 14-day quarantine followed by a 7-day home quarantine are required. When you add to this the seven days of the competition, it means his club will miss him for a month,” Sarr explained.

 "That’s why his club won’t agree to release him because Fiba only request clubs to let players join national teams for just one week,” he added.

Meanwhile, foreign-based players Axel Mpoyo (United States), Ntore Habimana (Canada) and Pierre Thierry Vandriessche (France) are joining the national team’s training camp today, February 2, at Kigali Arena while Bahrain-based Kenny Gasana, and Belgium-based William Robeyns the will directly meet team in Senegal.

Sixteen African teams will be battling for a spot in the FIBA World Cup that will take place in Indonesia, Japan and Philippines next year.

The qualifiers journey will run over an 18-month period.

Teams will have to go through a six-window qualifying process that will eventually determine the final 32 teams for the World Cup. Africa will be represented by five teams.

African qualifiers’ groups

Group A: Cape Verde, Mali, Uganda, Nigeria

Group B: South Sudan, Cameroon, Tunisia, Rwanda

Group C: Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Central Africa Republic, Angola

Group D: Kenya, Senegal, Egypt, Democratic Republic of Congo.