As reward for its successful staging of the Lagos International Classics, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) has granted Nigeria the hosting rights for the premier 2014 African Top 16 Cup.
As reward for its successful staging of the Lagos International Classics, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) has granted Nigeria the hosting rights for the premier 2014 African Top 16 Cup.
The tournament, which serves as African qualifiers for the 2014 Men's and Women's Cups, will take place immediately after the Lagos Classics.
Khaled El-Salhy, the president of the African Table Tennis Federation (ATTF), said: "This is to you confirm that ITTF has approved the bid of Nigeria and recommendation of ATTF Executive Committee to stage the 2014 ITTF-Africa Top 16 Cup in Lagos on June 27 to 28 2014.
"We are confident the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation can organise a Continental/World Title event quite successful. The Lagos Classics was quite successful in terms of media coverage, while the turnout of spectators really gave a good image to the event. Moreover, the technical benefit for Nigerian players was also a big gain."
He added: "The Lagos Classics was a pilot project for Nigeria and ATTF to use the media coverage to promote advertising/sponsorship resources, as well as the expected technical promotion for all African players especially Nigerian players."
ATTF Vice President, Olabanji Oladapo, believes Nigeria would benefit greatly from staging the championship: "As I said in one of my interviews during the Lagos Classics that the classics was a test event that will open doors for other ITTF/ATTF sanctioned competitions for Nigeria. The way it was managed was good and it made it easier for us to push for the Africa Top 16 Cup despite intense lobbying from other African countries to host the competition. We have shown ITTF/ATTF our capacity to organise a good competition and I am sure more opportunities will come our way.
He added: "Nigeria will get equipment from the ITTF that will be used for the competition and ITTF will also send their experts to Nigeria to train our technical officials in our area of needs. Our performance in organising the Africa Top 16 Cup will also open doors for other opportunities, while the presence of top players in the Africa Top 16 Cup and world class players in the Lagos Classics will expose our players and table tennis lovers to high-level competition."
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