The Malian national basketball team has been disqualified from the 2022 FIBA World Cup qualifiers after failing to show up for a second game in a row at the ongoing tournament in Kigali.

On Friday, June 1, they missed their opening game against Uganda, and on Saturday, they missed the one against Nigeria, despite having travelled to Kigali for the tournament.

This means they lost each of these games by forfeiture.

According to reports, the Malian players refused to play because they haven’t been paid their allowances by their local federation for some time.

According to the official basketball rules, if a team forfeits two games in a tournament, it is disqualified from the competition, and the results of the games it had played are nullified.