The national men’s basketball team, Silverbacks will miss the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers that start on Friday.
The federation, through the president Nasser Sserunjogi, confirmed the development on Tuesday citing lack of funding from the government.
“Fuba was informed Government of Uganda, through National Council of Sports (NCS) that there was no money for this particular campaign,” part of the statement from Sserunjogi revealed.
“Having put up a splendid performance at Afrobasket in Kigali, Rwanda recently and making the quarterfinals, finishing no.6 overall, this team had a genuine chance to be among the top five countries in Africa and make the World Cup for the first time in the history of Ugandan basketball.”
Fuba have been making headlines for their lack of funds the last few months.
Their problems started with the second phase of the Afrobasket Qualifiers in Morocco which the National Council of Sports was not ready to fund.
Having missed the games in Tunisia following positive Covid-19 cases in their camp, the Silverbacks had their games rescheduled to July away to Morocco and Cape Verde.
NCS had provided the funds for the trip to Tunisia but communicated that there was no money for the one to Morocco.
The federation borrowed money and travelled to Morocco, won the game to qualify for Afrobasket.
After sealing qualification to Afrobasket, NCS then came in to fund the trip to Rwanda at the eleventh hour.
They provided Fuba with 340m and the federation elected to use the money to settle the debt acquired to facilitate the trip to Morocco.
The team then made headlines in Kigali for being cash strapped and unable to clear their bills.
The Silverbacks, however, put their problems aside and finished sixth at Afrobasket.
Breaking into the top five in the qualifiers would be enough for Uganda to qualify for her first ever World Cup.
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