Nigeria will send representatives to participate in the Dutch Open Darts Championship in Netherlands holding in February 3rd to 7th, 2017.

The Secretary of Nigeria Darts Federation, Mr. Ademola Okeyedun, who said on Wednesday that the championship would be the first outing of the federation, noted that the major problem confronting the federation was lack of funds, which is a general phenomenon to all sports federations.

He said, “We did not organise any of our planned programme of the 2016 because of paucity of funds. The most important event which is our national Darts championship; all our efforts to organise it was in vain.

“We didn’t participate in all the international championships which were more than 10 events, and the international body was sending us all the invitation letters. The most painful thing was we could not attend the annual general meeting in August in Switzerland where we will have used the opportunity to table our challenges. The only event of the federation this year was the demonstration of Darts in the Federation of Public Service Games (FEPSGA) in Jos last month.”

Oyekedun urges Federal Government and Non-Governmental Organisations to support the federation to achieve their plans in 2017.

He said, “We want to believe that 2017 will be better than this year because we really want to execute at least 50 per cent of our programmes. We need support from the Minister of Sports and Youth, Solomon Dalung; private Organisations and philanthropies; the truth is that we can’t do anything without them. We have athletes on ground that will represent and make us proud whenever we have any international championship.”