The Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) issued a warning Wednesday indicating that the federation must sanction all tournaments.
As a course of proper procedure, sponsors and promoters should know that the governing body for basketball in Guyana is the GABF. However on numerous occasions promoters and even sub-associations have violated this procedure.
“The GABF is the governing body of basketball in Guyana and advises all sponsors and promoters that tournaments which include teams from around the country must be sanctioned by the GABF and not sub-associations,” a GABF statement said.
The federation saw the need to issue the statement ahead of the 2007 Next Level Entertainment (NLE) tournament that gets underway at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall tonight.
A sub-association, the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association, (GABA) apparently jumped ahead of the GABF and offered sanction to the promotion group NLE without the authorization of the federation.
Co-Executive of NLE, Yannick Charles had told Stabroek Sport in a report carried on Sunday that the group sent a letter to the federation indicating that they would be collaborating with the sub-associations to host the 2007 tournaments.
Charles said that he had received no response to the letter from the GABF.
However, he did not state whether the letter was a request for sanctioning or not. He did say, however, that the letter provided information about the upcoming tournament. The GABF said that tournament had created some concern but nevertheless, in the interest of the sport and the spirit of competition the GABF decided to sanction the tournament after being approached by GABA president Chris Bowman.
The federation did not want to say that Bowman did the first thing last in directing requests for sanctioning to the head body after he had already released the Georgetown teams and appeared with NLE at the launching of the tournament.
President of the GABF, Godwin McPherson told Stabroek Sport Wednesday that the next time an issue such as this comes up the federation will not handle it lightly.
“You either do it right or not at all,” McPherson said, adding that the International Basketball Association (IBA) and the Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) only recognise the federation as the legitimate governing body for basketball in Guyana.
“Bowman cannot speak for Linden (the Linden Amateur Basketball Association (LABA), East Coast and the East Bank,” the federation’s top executive explained.
Several clubs in Georgetown had expressed their concern over the manner in which they received invitations to play in the tournament. One club said that if the federation had not cleared the issue they would have withdrawn from the competition.
“We want to ensure that the tournament is sanctioned by the right body,” president of that club said. Representatives of the clubs in the tournament were invited to an exclusive meeting with the promoters Wednesday at the GABA headquarters.
Meanwhile, the federation said in the release that they would revisit the Dwayne ‘Sugar’ Roberts issue that resulted in the player being banned for two years by the Linden association after a fight in the mining town.
“In an effort to stem the indiscipline amongst players, the GABF is requesting that the organizers, Next Level Entertainment, exclude Roberts from participating in this competition until the GABF makes a conclusion on this matter,” the release said.
The barring of Roberts from this year’s tournament will be a major blow to the Ravens’ basketball club. Roberts’s absence from the games of the GABA league tournament is one of the factors that resulted in the team’s third place finish in that tournament.
Indiscipline has cost Ravens one of their top players and may cost them the $250,000 first place prize after finishing as runners-up last year. The GABF stated that the federation’s disciplinary committee would be convened at the NLE tournament.
The second-placed team in this year’s NLE nationwide knockout first division competition will net $100,000 while the third-placed team bags $50,000. Kings, Ravens and Courts Pacesetters were the top three finishers at the first instalment of the tournament last year.