WNBA star Elizabeth "Liz" Cambage is facing backlash of epic proportions after a new investigation from an Australian sports publication exposed allegations against her from several members of Australia's and Nigeria's basketball teams. The allegations include racist rhetoric & physical violence hurled at Nigerian players while she played for Australia. More inside.
Well, this isn't pretty. The L.A. Sparks' newest star, 30-year-old Liz Cambage, is in STEAMING hot water. One of the faces of the WNBA, who is both an Australian and British national, is being accused of disgusting racist actions during her time playing for Australia's team just before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. And it might be more insight into why Liz went on to pull out of the Tokyo games citing mental health.
One of the articles on Liz Cambage unpaywalled. pic.twitter.com/esrG2iw6MU
— Evie (@tiredandstrong) May 28, 2022
During a practice game with Team Nigeria just weeks before team took off the Tokyo, 6-foot, 8-inch Liz allegedly made dirty moves like elbowing and slapping players on Nigeria's squad, and yelling at them to "go back to their country" while simultaneously, allegedly, calling them "monkeys." Interestingly, Liz herself is half Nigerian. Her father is Nigerian and her mother is Australian (white).
Code Sports Australia reveals:
News Corp Australia has obtained video from the infamous closed-door practice match at the University Nevada Las Vegas which clearly captures Cambage elbowing her Nigerian opponent in the head and neck.
In the chaos that ensued, Cambage slaps another Nigerian player across the face and racially vilifies the entire African team.
Embarrassed Australian team officials were forced to call off the practice before the end of the second quarter.
Our special investigation, including multiple interviews with players from the Nigerian and Australian 2021 Olympic squads, finally unlocks the code of silence surrounding Cambage’s shock Opals departure just 12 days before their opening game in Tokyo.
The report continues:
Several Australian and three Nigerian players, who spoke on the condition that their identities would not be revealed, have claimed they heard Cambage tell the Africans to “go back to your third world country” and called them “monkeys”.
In another astonishing revelation, a Nigerian player claims that Cambage told a teammate on the day of the Vegas practice match that she wished she was playing for Nigeria because her Australian teammates were racists.
Australian and Nigerian players were prompted to break their silence after Cambage took aim at her former Opals teammates in a recent interview with ABC Sport.
As for why this is all unsurfacing now, it seems Liz's new tenure with the L.A. Sparks – that was kicked off with a media campaign earlier this month full of multiple interviews where she pretty much bashed her old team and blamed them as the problem – is to blame.
Cambage, now playing with the Los Angeles Sparks in the WNBA, said in a pre-season media event that she now felt “protected on a level that the Opals, or the Australian team, never gave to me”, and said she never felt the Opals wanted her “to be the best I can be”.
Those remarks reopened old and painful wounds from the Opals’ ill-fated pre-Olympic camp in Las Vegas.
This investigation unveils a toxic environment in which a selfish and arrogant Cambage eroded the team culture, and pushed officials and teammates to breaking point.
Interesting. You can read CODE Sports Australia's report on the full investigation HERE.
Meanwhile, Twitter unleashed hell on Liz all weekend, and ish wasn't pretty:
One of the articles on Liz Cambage unpaywalled. pic.twitter.com/esrG2iw6MU
— Evie (@tiredandstrong) May 28, 2022
Team player pic.twitter.com/a7k3naeQyV
— Mia “there’s always next season” Lastname (@themiasandrist) May 28, 2022
Liz's hasn't addressed this yet, and her most recent posts are celebrating her new role with the Sparks that kicked off last week:
@LASparkspic.twitter.com/niKDzioVkI
— Elizabeth Cambage (@ecambage) February 24, 2022
You may recall her first getting hella buzz when she launched a racy OnlyFans account last November. And she's been receiving plenty of support since she was announced as the new Sparks player from rappers like Drake and fellow ballers like LeBron James – she appeared on a recent episode of his HBO show "The Shop".
Welp. Looks like not everything is pretty when it comes to her.
Photos: Getty/Twitter
