Kenyan teams finally fly out to Cairo for Zone 5 qualifiers

Kenya’s men and women’s teams finally departed on Sunday morning from Nairobi for the Fiba Afro Basket Zone Five qualifiers in Cairo, Egypt.

This is after the government secured air tickets a day after it had cancelled them due to unspecified reasons.

The contingent of 27 – 11 men, 11 women players, and five team officials left aboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight at 4am from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

The contingent touched safely touched down in Cairo some five hour later.

Kenya Basketball Federation chairman Paul Otula told Nation Sport that the confusion in travelling plans was as a result of miscommunication on the issuing of visas.

“The Ministry thought that the players had not secured their visas which was not the case and so they did not provide the tickets. We finally resolved the issue with them later on Saturday night and were able to get the team on the Sunday morning flight to Egypt,” Otula said on Sunday.

“We are glad the teams have travelled because failure to participate in the competition would have attracted stiff penalties from Fiba.”

Both teams will be in action on Monday on day two of the competition with the men’s team taking on Rwanda in their opening Pool A match at 3.45pm Kenyan time, while the women’s team battle arch-rivals and zone champions Uganda at 10.15pm in what should be a cracking contest.

Seven teams are taking part in the men’s competition, while the women’s contest has attracted only four teams.

The top two teams from the two men’s pools will advance to the semis while the women’s competition will be played in a round-robin format.