Former WNBA star Liz Cambage has revealed she’s in the process of leaving the Australian national team to play for Nigeria.
Cambage, a 6-foot-9 center, made the WNBA All-Star game in 2018, 2019 and 2021 and led the league in scoring in the first of those seasons.
In an interview with Taylor Rooks of Bleacher Report, Cambage denied that she directed racial slurs toward players on the Nigerian national team during a pre-Olympics scrimmage in 2021.
In May of 2022, a report from the Australian newspaper The Sunday Telegraph indicated that Cambage referred to players on the Nigerian team as “monkeys” and told them to “go back to your third-world country” during a scrimmage between Australia and Nigeria in Las Vegas.
Denying the reports, Cambage said she is very pro-Black and will never lean towards racially-backed insults.
“I don’t really lean towards racially backed insults,” Cambage said. “That’s not how I go. I’m very pro-Black. I did not say these [things] to these girls. The truth looks a lot worse for other organizations involved, than using me as a scapegoat.”
In addition, Cambage said that Nigeria has asked her to play for them.
“We’re filing for me to leave the Australian national team so I can represent Nigeria,” Cambage said. “I’ve been in cahoots. I’ve been talking with them since all of this happened. This is what I mean. People don’t know the truth.”
