Uganda’s table tennis players could miss out on participating in the 2024 Olympic Games after the sport’s local federation said on Thursday, March 2 that it does not have funds to facilitate a team to the regional qualifier event due next week in Djibouti.
The 2024 Olympic Games will be hosted in Paris, France and the qualifiers for different sporting disciplines are already underway.
According to the Uganda Table Tennis Federation (UTTF) president, Robert Jjagwe, they need Shs 64 million to send a team of eight players and two officials for regional senior championships, which get underway on March 6 in Djibouti.
The amount covers travel, accommodation and allowances for both the players and officials.
Speaking to this website on Thursday afternoon, Jjagwe said they submitted their budget to the National Council of Sports (NCS) on January 4 this year but there’s no response yet. NCS is the supervisory body and in charge of distributing government support to local sports ruling bodies.
“Since then we were told the funds had not been released. However we have reliable information that the funds were released to NCS last week but our letters have not been answered and it’s just five days to departure for the competition,” Jjagwe said.
Jjagwe explained that if Uganda’s team does not compete in the in regional Senior Championships, it will be automatically out of the Olympics. It will also be out of the Africa Senior Championships and the World Table Tennis Championships due next year in South Korea.