By Our Correspondent

The Handball Federation of Nigeria, HFN have announced that the fifth edition of Sam Ocheho Invitational Handball Championship for the year 2020 has been cancelled as a result of the Corona virus pandemic, Bestchoicesports.com.ng reports.

In a release Sunday, the federation said the biennial championship, a pet project of HFN president Mr. Samuel Ocheho which was adopted as one of the programmes of the federation by the Congress last year, was scheduled to hold this June.

However, a statement from the HFN secretariat reveals the next edition will hold in 2022 as a result of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic.

“As part of our activities for 2020, June was scheduled for the 5th Sam Ocheho Invitational Handball Championship.

This championship have previously attracted teams handball teams from the western coast of African such as Benin, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. This year we had scheduled to invite teams from Niger Rep and Togo.

However with the pandemic currently ravaging the world, we are constrained to cancel the championship and then hold it in June 2022 which is meant to be when the next edition will hold.

Despite regretting the inability to host the championship, the HFN says the decision to cancel the championship was hinged on the safety of the handball players as the pandemic rages.

“This is a competition that handball players in Nigeria and other Western African countries usually look forward to and so we apologise for our inability to host it this year as the pandemic took the shine of the championship.

As a responsible federation we have no choice but to abide by the laws of the land and also to protect our Handballers from COvId 19.

We look forward to hosting you all in 2022 and please stay safe”. the statement ends.

The Handball Federation of Nigeria were one of the sports federation that postponed all activities earlier in the year after a directive from the Federal Ministry of Sports And Youth development to do so as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic.