The president of the Liberia Basketball Association (LBA), Abraham Samukai, is calling on officials of all registered teams under the Association’s ongoing 2024 National League to avoid missing LBA matches due to other activities including the National County Sports Meet.
He said basketball teams and their supporters along with officials should try their best to follow their respective game schedules while other competitions are gearing up to interrupt the turnout at the gymnasium.
He sees prioritizing the basketball league as an important objective for registered teams because the lack of funding reported by the county meet steering committee ruled out the participation of their athlete in the county meet this season.
Samukai, in an exclusive interview with local media recently, explained that he is making the call to officials of registered teams under the LBA to make them understand that basketball is not part of the ongoing 2024 National County Sports Meets and so all of the registered teams for the LBA 2024 national league must try their best to abide by the game’s fixtures given to them.
Samukai continued that every lover of the game of basketball was confident that there could be basketball in the nation’s biggest sporting festival for the delay 2023/2024 but the Ministry of Youth and Sports made it clear to them that basketball was not part of the tournament and they quickly informed stakeholders of all registered teams under the LBA that the game of basketball was not part of the National County Sports Meets and so the Association’s national league continues.
He said, “I am making this call to stakeholders of the Liberia Basketball Association because we all thought that the game of basketball was part of the ongoing National County Sports Meets but before the resumption of county meets, the Ministry of Youth and Sports made it clear to the LBA that basketball was not part of the tournament which we all agreed on and we have already made it clear to officials of the LBA’s registered teams that our league would continue while the National County Sports Meets continues.”
The LBA boss furthered that most of the LBA’s third division league games would be played at the opened-air Sports Commission on Broad Street so that all of the league games would go on as scheduled and it would also help to complete the league on time and called on all third division registered teams to follow their games’ schedule and the rules governing the game for the common growth of basketball.
