Liz Cambage shocked women’s basketball fans with news that she has applied to play for Nigeria at the Olympics.
The London native recently sat down with Bleacher Report host Taylor Rooks to discuss some controversial topics. During the conversation, many were surprised to learn Cambage is interested in playing for Nigeria’s women’s basketball team as her next career move, despite previous allegations of her using racial slurs and degrading comments about the players and country, according to ESPN.
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In 2020, the athlete played for the Opals, the Australian women’s basketball team. Two years later, retired Opals player Jenna O’Hea alleged to ABC that the former Los Angeles Sparks player called her Nigerian competitor a “monkey” and said “go back to your third world country,” which Cambage continued to deny during a pre-Olympics practice match before the start of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Game, ESPN reported.
“I did not say these things to these girls,” she said to Brooks in the interview.
Due to the allegations, she hasn’t played a game for Australia again. The 31-year-old guaranteed there’s never been any bad blood between her and the organization, despite claims that she used racial slurs and made degrading comments about the players and country. In fact, Cambage, whose father is Nigerian, challenged the claims toward her and said she has strong ties with Nigeria’s coaching staff. She said they are welcoming her to be a part of their organization and that she hopes she can represent Nigeria in the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
“Why does Nigeria want me to leave Australia and represent them,” she said to Rooks, who then requested clarity. “We’re filing for me to leave the Australian team so I can represent Nigeria,” she responded. “I’ve been in cahoots, I’ve been talking to them since all of this happened. This is what I mean, people don’t know the truth.”
She said she believes the root of the story about her offensive verbiage stems from her teammates, other professional players and coaches having underhanded animosity toward her. She claimed this must be true because spewing out hateful words is something that isn’t in her nature to do.
“A lot of girls don’t like me. I don’t really lean towards racially backed insults,” she said. “That’s not how I go. I’m very pro-Black. I did not say these things to these girls.”
Liz Cambage says she’s in talks to leave the Australian team to represent Nigeria in the Olympics.
She maintains she did not use a racial slur towards the Nigerian team during a scrimmage ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics
Nigerian player Promise Amukamara caught wind of the interview and called out Cambage for lying. She tweeted her thoughts regarding her memory of what happened when things got heated between the 6′ 9″ athlete and her teammate and former WNBA player Victoria Macaulay during the practice game.
“She called us Monkeys & told us to go back to our country. Yes she said that!” Amukamara tweeted.
Cambage said she is confident that if game footage were shown to the public, her name would be cleared. This led to her daring the Opals organization to disclose all the recordings available of the incident in question.
“Leak the tapes. I’ve never owned the tapes. Leak the tapes. Y’all want to see the truth, leak the tapes. Everyone in Australia that has seen the tapes, still lying about what is on these tapes, leak the tapes,” she said. “I want it out there. Put it out there. I’ve never owned it. I didn’t even have it when everything happened.”