U18 men miss Fiji trip

THE Papua New Guinea Under-18 men’s side are hoping to tour Australia later this month.
The Basketball Federation of Papua New Guinea (BFPNG) said that due to a lack of funds, the PNG U18s would not be attending the 2016 FIBA Oceania Championships in Fiji this week.
BFPNG chief executive officer Joel Khalu, pictured, said the federation did not reach its targeted sponsorship amount, meaning travel to Suva was no longer an option.
“To send both of our PNG U18 teams to Fiji for the Oceania Championships was going to cost about K150,000. Unfortunately, we were only successful in fundraising half of that amount,” Khalu said.
“It’s extremely disappointing for everybody involved. We (BFPNG) worked very hard over the past three months trying to secure as many partners as possible and believed that we had a fantastic product, in the form of our two U18 national representative sides that businesses would be proud to invest in and support.
“Unfortunately it’s a sign of the current economic climate in PNG, where corporations are not investing as much into sports-based sponsorship as they used to.
“This time of year is also tough to attract funds, as many organisations’ have already exhausted their budget allocations relating to marketing and sponsorship for 2016.”
Having only raised half of the required funds, the BFPNG Board made the difficult decision to only send its women’s team to Fiji, meaning PNG still had representation at the championships.
Khalu said this board decision was made as it fitted in line with the federation’s philosophy around “encouraging and supporting our PNG women to participate in sport”.
It’s not all bad news for the PNG men’s U18 side however, with BFPNG already beginning preparations for an alternative and cost-effective alternative for the side.
“These young men have made a tremendous commitment to training over the past two months and deserve the right to represent their country,” Khalu said.
“We’re currently in discussions with Cairns basketball in Australia about getting our U18 men down to far north Queensland to play some international-standard games.
“The response has been positive and travelling to Cairns is an affordable, alternative option for BFPNG,” he said.
“We have every confidence that we’ll be able to generate the funds required to get our players down to Australia in two weeks time, and get them the international exposure they certainly deserve.”