[by Kris SANTIAGO] - The ongoing problem of financing travel expenses and preparation camps in African basketball are well documented.

Last year, Senegal's national team was fighting over premiums with the ministry of sports while they were preparing and head coach Sam Vincent left the team shortly for Charlotte before the championships begun. The financial and logistical problems caused an early exit for the ambitious nation last year.
Nigeria even chose not to prepare in Europe or the U.S at all for the African Champs 2007 and received the bill through Cape Verde who kicked "D'Tigers" out of the competition early.

Cameroon's "Indomitable Lions" are facing once again exactly this kind of trouble.
They often traveled to the zonal qualifiers in Africa with local players and failed to make it the African championships a couple of times or even decided not to attend at all.
Mainly due to head-coach Adingono's effort, Cameroon sent their best players to the CAN 2007 in Angola and surprisingly for many, made it to the finals without having a proper preparation before.
The pool of talents from the French-speaking country is deep, but to crop all players in time to train and prepare them for the tough task of qualifying for the Olympics through Athens is not the only headache for Adingono as the team has not even the security of even make it to Athens to play. Read

Cape Verde is the other candidate for the Olympic qualifier in Athens is in similar trouble.
The government promised to support the national team after their victorious return from Angola where they managed to secure a ticket to Athens.
The national team needs around 360.000 Euros to cover the costs for preparation in Europe and the travel expenses to Athens, but the government wants to provide 10% of that amount so far. If the team fails to make it to Athens, "it will be a great shame for Cape Verde," according to federation president Kitana Cabral who spoke with Africabasket.com correspondent Pedro Gomes a week ago.

Besides Tunisia, who is also known for traveling and training in Europe a lot, only Angola which is preparing under professional circumstances for years and their hunt for titles in Africa show other nations how to do it the right way.

With all that said, Cameroon and Cape Verde are still hoping to make it to Athens to correct some of the experts prognostics that see those two newly risen African teams going dead last in their respective groups in Greece.