Los Angeles Sparks’ Liz Cambage denies making disparaging remarks to Nigerian basketball team: “monkeys” and “go back to your third-world country.”

Liz Cambage is a professional female basketball player. She plays center position for Los Angles Sparks and formerly played for Australian women’s basketball team, the Opals., her native country . Her mother is  Australian and father is a Nigerian. Therefore it sounds ironic for someone with Nigerian heritage to be accused of such a racial remark.

“The incident that took place in the pre-Olympic scrimmage with the Nigerian national team was handled privately almost a year ago,” Cambage, who was playing for the Australian women’s national team at the time, wrote Sunday night in a statement posted to Instagram. “I am very disappointed and hurt by the events and accusations that have unfolded in the Australian media. The account of what took place is inaccurate and misleading. I did not use the racial slur toward the Nigerian team that has been circulating.”

“The report, published over the weekend in The Sunday Telegraph, a subsidiary of News Corp, cited two anonymous members of the Nigerian team who said they heard Cambage refer to them as “monkeys” during the closed-door scrimmage at UNLV. A third player told the paper that Cambage also said, “Go back to your third-world country.”

In Cambage Instagram page, she wrote, “After I unintentionally fouled a Nigerian player on court, I was then physically assaulted by this player on the sideline of my bench. I was hit in the face and pushed to the ground, but I walked away. … We did not have professional referees to manage and prioritize both teams’ safety during this highly physical scrimmage.

“This is not an excuse of justification to the events that unfolded or my actions, however, I feel that a full picture of the environment that led to this outcome must be shared.”

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