After months of training, planning preparation, and excitement of what could be the first International tournament at the Hoima City Stadium Arena, sad news came in that Uganda would not be hosting the U18 Zone V Qualifiers.

In an official statement, FUBA informed the public that the reason as to why the hosting rights had been withdrawn was because of Ebola.

“The Federation of Uganda Basketball Associations (FUBA) wishes to inform all participating federations, teams, stakeholders, partners, and basketbal fans that FIBA Africa has officially withdrawn Uganda’s hosting rights for the 2026 FIBA U18 AfroBasket Zone Qualifiers following concerns arising from the recent Ebola outbreak. Following consultations and assessments by FIBA Africa, the tournament has been reassigned to Egypt and will now be held from 10th to 15th June 2026.”

The event was scheduled for 14th to 20th June at the Hoima City Stadium and this was going to be the first International tournament to be hosted at the indoor Arena. However, that will not be the case since the games have been moved.

What will happen to the teams?

The U18 girls already qualified for the Championship which will be in Abidjan. This was because Uganda reached the semifinals at the 2024 tournament that was hosted in South Africa.

For the qualifiers, they just wanted to build team chemistry and get acquainted with each other.

The boys are in a much difficult spot. They needed to qualify in order to advance to the championship and with home court advantage, the situation looked promising. However, things look very bad right now.

The FUBA President hinted on the fate of the team.

“The boys will not travel due to logistical challenges” he said.

This is understandable because, One, the hosting rights were withdrawn on short notice, and to make matters worse, the event was moved closer by a week.

All the plans that FUBA had have to be thrown out of the window and getting the money for the team’s travel is very difficult at a moments notice.

Additionally, the travel plans for the players who are out of the country, training and final preparation all have to change even the NBL fixture. Doing all this is a small time frame is very difficult but if money is available, the team could have a chance of traveling.

As of now, neither the boys or girls will be traveling but the girls already have their slot for the Championship which will be in Abidjan.

Given that the event was moved closer and taken to Egypt, it will be interesting to see which teams travel for the qualifiers.