Nigeria Content Online

Nigerian
born basketball player, Solomon Alabi, is on his way back to the Erie
BayHawks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) Development
League as the Toronto Raptors seek a way to get the best out of the
centre.

Alabi, after two
years at Florida State University, was drafted by the Dallas Mavericks
with the 50th overall pick in June 2010 who thereafter traded his
rights to the Raptors for a 2013 conditional second-round pick and cash
considerations. It will be the second time this season that the
22-year-old will be teaming up with the BayHawks following an initial
spell towards the end of 2010 that saw him feature in seven games
before rejoining the Raptors on December 8.

Since his return,
the 7-foot 1-inch centre has gone on to appear in four games for the
Raptors, which is a considerable improvement from the solitary
appearance he made prior to his first spell with the BayHawks. However,
Alabi has only played a total of 14 minutes for the Raptors this season
and remains on the lookout for his first NBA points having attempted
just one shot from the floor all season long.

Speaking to
reporters before the Raptors took on the Cleveland Cavaliers on
Wednesday night (Thursday in Nigeria) Alabi said he expects to join the
BayHawks ahead of Friday night’s Development League game against Sioux
Falls at Tullio Arena.

Happy to rejoin the BayHawks “I’m excited,” he said.

“I’m looking
forward to it. I’m just going to go out there, stay positive and if the
coach puts me out there, I’m going to go out there and play.”
Hopefully, Alabi, who averaged 8.6 points, 6.7 rebounds and three
blocks during his first stint with the BayHawks, will yet again get
enough playing time with the BayHawks before returning to the Raptors.
“We’ve got to get him as many minutes as we can,” said Raptors’ coach
Jay Triano, on Thursday. “He’s not getting in. He’s not in the rotation
right now. He’s had a great attitude and he’s been with us, but we need
to get him some minutes.” The Development League, also known as the
D-League, was established in 2001 and is the official minor league of
the NBA and serves as a training ground for players who have played for
two years or less in the world’s toughest basketball league. Alabi
isn’t however the first NBA player with Nigerian roots to feature in
the D-League as a host of others had previously taken that route to
stardom, most notably Kelenna Azubuike, who now turns out for the New
York Knicks, and Ime Udoka, of the San Antonio Spurs.

Top
seed Maria Sharapova’s flirtation with the New Zealand public came to a
premature end Thursday with a surprising 6-2 7-5 loss to unseeded
Hungarian Greta Arn in the quarter-finals of the Auckland Classic.

The three-times
grand slam winner, who had chosen to warm up for the Australian Open by
entering the Auckland tournament rather than her normal schedule of
playing exhibition matches, struggled with her rhythm in the swirling
wind Thursday.

She was broken
twice in the first set by the 31-year-old Arn and made numerous
unforced errors in the second to crash out in a match lasting 91
minutes.

“I started off
really slow, got down two breaks and I think she gained a tremendous
amount of confidence from that,” Sharapova told reporters. “I had my
chances in the second (set), but I didn’t play the same way I had
played to get there.

“Obviously I would
have loved to play a few more here and be the winner. But that’s the
way it goes. You look forward to the next one.

“That’s the good
thing about tennis.” Semi final fixtures Arn will now meet
fourth-seeded German Julia Goerges who beat Ukraine’s Kateryna
Bondarenko 5-7 6-2 6-2 in the last quarter-final that was played in the
final evening session of the tournament.

Sharapova’s
presence had helped effectively sell-out the tournament by the first
day and her defeat disappointed those hoping for a final against
champion and second seed Yanina Wickmayer.

Wickmayer had
earlier made sure of her place in the semi-finals when she beat
Romania’s Simona Halep 6-0 6-2 in a little over an hour in the first
match on center court and set up a showdown with China’s Peng Shuai,
who beat British qualifier Heather Watson 6-4 7-5.

“I feel very happy, this is the first week of the year and I’m
really happy to be playing well,” said Wickmayer, who extended her
unbeaten run in Auckland to eight matches. “I’m in the semis so I guess
this tournament is lucky for me.”

The
English Premier takes a break this weekend with the 103-year old FA Cup
gracing the pitches; and one of the most intriguing match-ups will be
that between Arsenal and Leeds United. After the dour 0-0 draw against
Manchester City on Wednesday evening, Arsene Wenger will hope to get
back into the scoring groove against the Championship side, today at
the Emirates.

And
former Champions League semi-finalists, Leeds, say that their focus is
to gain promotion to the Premier League and to compete with clubs like
Arsenal on a weekly basis. Peter Lorimer, a former Leeds striker and
now board director said on itv.com: “Promotion is a priority this
season. We’ve come a long way in the last two to three years and it
would be great if we could consolidate rather than have another
draining cup run, as we have a realistic chance of getting out of this
league. We don’t really have a chance (against Arsenal). As we showed
last year at Old Trafford we can hold our own,

but
realistically you have to say Arsenal are big favourites. As long as we
don’t get battered we’ll be more than pleased.” Leeds shocked
Manchester United 1-0 at Old Trafford in last season’s FA Cup third
round, which saw the revelation of Jermaine Beckford, who has now
transferred to Everton. So expect players to want to emulate that
scenario and get themselves noticed by the bigger clubs. In Argentine
striker,

Luciano
Becchio, they have a player who could throw the cat amongst the
pigeons. Kieran Gibbs could be recalled for the Gunners, the left back
has been out of action since December with an ankle injury.

Barcelona
on a roll going to the Riazor Barcelona will continue their quest for a
third consecutive La Liga trophy when they face Deportivo La Coruna at
the 35,000 capacity atmospheric Riazor Stadium on Saturday. Lionel
Messi, Gerard Pique and Carles Puyol did not play in the 2-1 victory
over Levante but the players should be back for the Riazor trip.

Eric
Abidal scored his first ever goal for Barcelona and that was enough to
qualify the Catalan side for the quarter finals of the Copa Del Rey.
Puyol and Anders Iniesta started on the bench with Barcelona having 70%
of the possession in the first 20 minutes but there was no goal until
the 75th minute when Iniesta had joined Lionel Messi and David Villa.
In the dying moments of the game, Ibrahim Afellay came on for his
Barcelona debut after his move from PSV Eindhoven of Holland.

Guardiola
said after the victory that “we are two steps away from the final and I
can assure you we’ll do all we can to get there”. The teams standing in
the way of a place in the semi finals are Getafe and Betis,

and to underestimate them “would be a lack of respect.” There won’t be a lack of respect as they face Deportivo on Saturday.

John Obuh, the
coach of Nigeria’s Under-20 national football team, John Obuh has
commenced the task of ensuring that the Flying Eagles advance to the
knockout rounds of the upcoming African U-20 Youth Championship (AYC)
by calling up 34 players to camp. The move by the Flying Eagles coach
comes in the aftermath of Tuesday’s AYC draw which saw the Nigerian
side pitched alongside Ghana, Cameroon and Gambia in Group B of the
tournament which gets under way on March 18 with the Flying Eagles
opening their quest the next day with a game against Ghana in Benghazi.
The Flying Eagles will, three days after the game against the
tournament’s defending champions, come up against Cameroon before
ending their group phase games with a match against the Gambians on
March 25.

But only two teams
will get to advance to the semi-final round of the tournament where
they will be joined by two other sides from Group A featuring the
hosts, Libya, Mali, Egypt and Lesotho.

However, the AYC
serves as the qualifying tournament for the next FIFA U-20 World Cup to
be hosted later in the year by Colombia, and with only four slots
reserved for the African continent, advancing to the semi final will be
the least aspiration of every side coming to Libya as it guarantees a
slot at the World Cup which gets underway on July 29.

And Obuh, keen on
ensuring that the Flying Eagles get to pick up one of the four tickets,
has called up 34 players to camp. The players, who are mostly drawn
from the Nigerian Premier League and the second-tier division, the
National League, as well as a handful of players from the amateur
division, are expected to report at the FIFA Technical Centre, Abuja on
Saturday.

New Invitees

However, none of
the players called up by Obuh this time around had previously featured
for the Flying Eagles as the coach, in a bid to get new players to add
to the side which secured the AYC qualification ticket, opted to call
up new players. During the qualifiers for the AYC, Obuh prosecuted his
side’s matches mostly with players that he had two years ago led to a
second-place finish at the 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup which took place in
Nigeria.

Nineteen teams have
confirmed that they will participate in the second edition of the
annual Rivers State Governor’s Cup which is being staged in partnership
with the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) The tournament, due
to kick off on January 20 at the Liberation stadium in Port Harcourt is
expected to mark the commencement of Rivers State football season.

Ibigoni Benjamin
Akobo, Secretary of the Rivers State FA, confirmed that the
participants have increased for this year’s edition of the event.

“We have 19 teams
registered for this year’s edition and they have been preparing for the
past six months with the goal of dethroning defending champions Okrika
LGA who won the last edition in 2009” he said. “This tournament will
now kick start our season. We had to move the event to early 2011 to
kick start the year and we hope this will aid the development of our
football calendar.” He added

Exhibition of talent

The football
fiesta, which runs from January 20 – February 12 is set to offer
thousands of talented footballers in the 23 local government areas of
the state opportunity to show case their skills to the big leagues in
the land.

The last edition of
the tournament ended on high note with a pulsating final between Okrika
and Tai. Okrika won 2-0. The event also made it possible for the Rivers
State FA to select some players who are now part of the state’s
contingent preparing for the national sports festival to be hosted by
the state this year.

According to the
sports management facilitator, Emeka Enyadike, there are plans to
invite notable coaches, local and international scouts to the event
with prospects for identified players to be selected for professional
careers or overseas scholarships.

“We are looking at
opportunities for those who could also attract international
scholarships that will be offered through our partnerships, especially
those players with good academic records,” he said.

Arrangements are in
place to make the Friends of Rugby, Lagos Rugby Union League a national
affair from April 2011 so as to accommodate other players across the
country. Ntiense Williams, secretary of the FOR who disclosed this,
said: “Friends of Rugby has been inundated with calls from stakeholders
from other parts of the country to assist them with the organisational
techniques and funding of their rugby league programmes to be as
successful as the Lagos Rugby Union League, which is in its fifth year.
The chairman and board members have been moved by the requests and will
be magnanimous enough to encourage meaningful development of the game
in the country.”

He also added that
the FOR would be happy to assist and would be putting finishing touches
to the arrangements with the Northern Rugby League organisers, and
Rugby League programme to be established in the Niger-Delta region in
the 2011 Rugby Season.

“The National Rugby
Union League programme of activities for the season will culminate in a
national rugby union league play-off at the end of the regional
Leagues,” he said.

The league format
would be such that six teams from each region (Lagos, Northern and
Niger-Delta) would play separately but simultaneously. At the end of
the league season, the champions who emerge from each of the three
regions would play each other for the national champion to emerge.

Williams gave the
reason for this arrangement, “We may not be able to provide logistics
for say, moving from the North to the Southwest but at least if we can
for now cater for other things we are satisfied,” he said.

This is an innovation by FOR to assist in the overall development of rugby in the country.

Stakeholders meeting not a waste of time

In a related
development, Williams has expressed sadness that the Nigerian Rugby
Football Federation considers the stakeholders meeting a waste of time.

“The stakeholders’
meeting though organised by the FOR was actually for everyone involved
in rugby. When the people one is leading decide they want a change, are
they not entitled to ask for it? Anyway, we have not presented the NRFF
with documentation for our request. Maybe if they see it, they would
understand better.

Williams was reacting to the statement made by Richard Ajayi,
president of the NRFF, on a radio station on Wednesday morning. In the
interview, Ajayi stated: “The FOR should take their grievances to the
National Sports Commission, which put up the federation for concession;
they should not waste their time.”

World
number one, Rafa Nadal, suffered a rare second-set meltdown before
recovering to beat plucky Slovakian, Lukas Lacko, and join rival Roger
Federer in the Qatar Open quarter-finals on Wednesday.

Nadal, who has been
suffering from a fever this week, took the first set on a tiebreak
after both men had traded breaks before collapsing in the second, where
he won just 11 points. It was the first time Nadal had lost a set 6-0
since February 2009 when he was beaten in the final of the World Indoor
Tournament in Rotterdam by Britain’s Andy Murray. The Spaniard
recovered brightly at the start of the final set to race into a 4-0
lead but dropped his serve for a fifth time in the match before closing
out a 7-6 0-6 6-3 victory. “It was really, really difficult,” said
Nadal, who is seeded to meet Federer in the final and will play Latvian
fifth seed Ernests Gulbis for a place in the last four. “Lukas played a
great match and if he plays at this level it is going to be difficult
for everyone to beat him.”

It was a slightly easier evening for Federer, who overcame a break
in the second set to take a 7-6 7-5 victory over Swiss compatriot Marco
Chiudinelli. “It was really difficult today, under the circumstances,”
said Federer, who closed out the match with a smash. “Playing such a
good friend is so rare for me. I’m happy the match is in the past and I
can look forward.” Federer, twice champion here, will face sixth seed
Viktor Troicki in the last eight after the Serbian eased past Russian
Teymuraz Gabashvili.

Third seed, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France, making
his comeback from injury, moved into the quarter-finals with a 6-2 6-4
defeat of Ukraine’s Sergei Bubka, son of the former Olympic pole vault
champion of the same name, and will face Spanish seventh seed,
Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, for a place in the last four.