Nigeria’s beach volleyball team denied Canadian visas

THE Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVBF) has lamented its inability to have its female team feature at the ongoing 2012 FIVB Swatch Junior Beach Volleyball World Championships in Canada.This followed the failure of the team to depart Nigeria for Halifax in Canada, venue of the championships, as a result of their unsuccessful effort at securing entry visa for the players and officials.The federation’s Secretary-General, Adisa Beyioku, said the situation was a regrettable one in view of the efforts put into preparing for their participation at the event.It was really disappointing that after we did all we should and could, we could still not secure entry visa, thereby stopping us from leaving for Canada for the event, he said.A team of two players and two officials were scheduled to leave Lagos on Tuesday night on a Delta Airline flight to participate at the championships scheduled for Aug. 29 to Sept. 2.The players are Isabella Eyetsonetan and Jummai Bitrus, while the officials are Samuel Timothy who is the accompanying referee/coach, and Beyioku who is the head of delegation.Failure to secure entry visa by Tuesday afternoon meant they had to delay the trip till Wednesday night, hoping that the visa matter would have been sorted out by Wednesday afternoon.But federation officials had to abort the trip by Wednesday evening after late-minute intervention from Canada volleyball officials and their Ministry of Sports could not help them out of the situation.“Not our fault”Beyioku said his federation had applied on time for visa for the delegation and had also got the organisers of the event to intercede on its behalf to avoid hitches.We started out on time with all our preparations, and we even commenced the visa application process as early as possible, while we did all we needed to do in terms of preparing the players to represent the country.But we then had to wait and wait endlessly for the visa issuance. We even had to start making arrangements to leave on Wednesday if Tuesday was not possible as a result of the visa issue.Canadian embassies also denied visas to teams from Burundi, Guinea Conakry, Morocco, Nigeria and Rwanda.The championship was earlier scheduled to begin on Aug. 27 but was later moved forward by two days after it had its Main Draw changed by the FIVB Beach Volleyball Commission.The championships is holding in Halifax for the second year running, with 32 teams now participating, instead of the earlier draw of 24 teams.