President of the basketball referees group, Dexter Douglas says the body has received an official apology from the basketball federation over a March 22nd game where a Linden team walked off the court in protest over the refereeing.
Douglas also said that the group has no issues with the basketball federation utilising foreign referees for the replay of the National Club Championship fixture.
The Road to Mecca finale between Linden unit Retrieve Raiders and Georgetown side Colts was abandoned after the former walked off the court in the fourth quarter over what they perceived as biased officiating. At the time of the stoppage, Colts were leading 54-51 with 9:18 remaining on the clock.
Raiders eventually returned to the playing area 20 minutes later following discussions with the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) President Nigel Hinds. Subsequently, footage of the fouls which led to the incident were reviewed by the federation boss, the officials and the Raiders captain.
It was eventually agreed that mistakes were made by the official. However the match did not resume after Colts opted to exit the arena, stating that the actions of their rivals could not be condoned.
Nonetheless, the matter was officially resolved on April 4th, with stakeholders on both sides agreeing to replay the match utilising officials from Barbados on either April 16th or 23rd.
Speaking in an exclusive interview yesterday, Douglas said “We at Guyana Basketball Officials Council (GBOC) don’t have any problem with the GABF using foreign referees. The Linden players felt that the referees from Georgetown was putting them at a disadvantage (even though) GBOC would have written the Linden Amateur Basketball Association (LABA) early in February inviting officials to participate in the tourney and they did not respond”.
“We don’t have a problem, we know we have capable and competent people to officiate games like these. We are here for basketball and development of basketball”, he added.
According to Douglas “Being quite honest we don’t have anyone who is FIBA (International Basketball Federation) certified, the reason for that is the cut off age for certification is 35”. Also to the same point, we have had referees who would have done the course and would have failed the fitness test. It’s not that the referees are fly by night, most of them would have played at the highest level”.
Douglas further said “For me it sets a bad precedence and when they go to CBC (Caribbean Basketball Champions-hips) they can’t do that. They have several players that would have played at that level. Even though you are bringing in foreign referees, I would not be surprised if another fiasco like that happens again”.
He added “Even though they will be bringing in referees, one of the biggest problems is that the players as well as the coaches don’t know the rule changes of FIBA and they would blame the referees for every call or any game they lost”.
“They would come to the game with that mind, the coaches don’t have a clue which is the biggest problem we have right now and the GABF probably should invest in a foreign coach to educate them”, Douglas stated.
Quizzed to confirm if the GABF issued an official apology to GBOC, he stated the entity has received an official apology from the GABF President who expressed regret at his statements made on the night of the game and in subsequent press releases.
“All in all, the President came forward with an apology and the GBOC accepted and it’s a step in the right direction” he added.
Asked if the relationship between the GBOC and GABF would have been affected if an apology was not forthcoming, he noted “From jump start our first statement was to the entire Guyana and we demanded an apology from the GABF and we were holding our position on that”.
