Maldivian badminton players Aminath Nabeeha (Naby) and Fathmath Nabaaha (Naba) who got the chance to participate in the Badminton World Championship starting today in Spain were unable to attend the tournament as they could not get Visas.

Naba and Naby got the opportunity in the world tournament’s Women’s Doubles. This is the first time that badminton players from Maldives earned the opportunity to take part in the World Championship. However, they lost this chance as they were unable to get the Schengen Visa needed to travel to Spain.

Naba and Naby came back to Maldives on this month’s 5th after taking part in the International Challenge Series held in Bangladesh. They were informed that they could not attend the tournament the day before they were scheduled to depart.

“This is a very huge opportunity that we lost because we were unable to get Visa,” Naba said on not being able to go to the World Championship.

Maldivian table tennis player Fathmath Dheemaa Ali had recently competed in the TT Youth Championship held in Portugal. In order to go to Portugal, they had to stay in Sri Lanka for a long time to arrange Visas. This was only possible due to the hard work of Dheema’s manager Ibrahim Shiury who was the Vice President of the TT Association. However, they were unable to get Visas to participate in the Contender tournaments held earlier in Portugal.

Back in 2019 Maldivian National Football Team players also had to stay in Sri Lanka to get Visas so that they could travel to Guam to play in the World Cup Qualifying matches. But they were unable to go as some players were unable to get their Visa.