Visa challenges continue to affect mostly African athletes in participating in international events especially in European countries.
The requirements put up by these countries are too harsh for them and difficult to fulfill by these athletes who comprise majority students and most originate from poor families raise all that is required.
The latest victims are the Ugandan darts team of Patrick Ochieng and Juma Said who were denied German Visas to be able to participate in their maiden Professional Darts World Cup in Frankfurt.
Ochieng who is the undisputable number one Africa professional darter was denied a visa to Germany together with his teammate Juma said to participate in the world tournament ending on Sunday.
Uganda Darts Association Chairman Abbey Ariong confirmed the development saying that as a federation and also National Council of sports tried whatever they could but the authorities at the embassy took the decision that way.
“I want to let you know that the Uganda Darts team to the BetVictor World Cup of Darts has been denied visas to travel to Frankfurt Germany despite having submitted what we think were all the requirements including securing return tickets and all the necessary financial support from the Government of Uganda through the National Council of Sports as well as a Diplomatic Note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.,” Ariong said.
“Our players have remained calm and composed despite this huge disappointment and let us now focus on other competitions to come,” Ariong.
Government had fully supported the team and through NCS had injected close to sh58m to support the team.
However, most of the challenges affecting the athlete are many do not have satisfactory Bank Statements and also have not travelled to other competitions out of the country according to their passports which gives the Authorities an impression that these athletes will disappear in their countries.
Uganda made the appeal but was not successful and also Malawi who were runner up could not process Visas to travel to Germany, thus Africa was not represented in that world Cup.
Team manager Alex Obalim was very disappointed but urged the Uganda Darts Association to always engage embassies earlier to be able to process these documents.
“I want to thank NCS and UDA for the efforts put in but we must now put in more efforts to make sure that we travel to all these other international competitions in African countries.
“I think our athletes should be in position to compete in all the regional and continental events to show that they are athletes who are active and competing in continental competitions,” Obai said.
“Denying athletes Visas is a big demotivation to athletes, especially the young ones and it kills sports development and leaves sports for only the rich who has good bank statements,” Obai added.
He urged the Uganda Darts Association to now start focusing on the coming Professional Darts tournament in Botswana and make sure that uganda athletes participate.
