Basketballers receive slam-dunk from GABF - Locals not represented at senior CARICOM c/ships Sports Scope...Our Opinion
Stabroek News
June 14, 2004

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Local basketballers have received a slam-dunk from the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF). Beset by internal problems and problems with the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA), the GABF has been unable to send a team to this year's senior CARICOM basketball championships which is currently taking place in Cuba.

Insiders told Sportscope that apart from an initial meeting, the GABF never met to discuss participation at the championships.

"As far as I know we have never met to discuss the issue apart from an initial meeting," a source close to the GABF told Sportscope yesterday.

Guyana last participated at the senior CARICOM basketball championships in 2000 in Barbados when the men's team placed a creditable third.

With the CARICOM championships now being held bi-annually, it means that Guyana will remain in the wilderness of Caribbean basketball until the 2006 championships comes around.

It also means that our local players would have aged by five or so years by that time with little or no international competition under their belts.

It is not a picture to recommend aspiring young players to the sport.

Previously the sport seemed to be going places with strong male and female teams often with an overseas-based flavour participating in tournaments.

There was also the odd scholarship to colleges in the United States of America for those with brains as well as basketball brawn.

Now, however, the sport seems to have suffered a distinct setback.

The GABF has been guilty of not holding elections for sometime and because of that, seems incapable of upholding discipline within the sub-associations.

Earlier this year a junior squad was shortlisted to participate in the annual Inter-Guiana Games but the Games will not be held this year so the junior basketballers will probably have to wait until next year for some international exposure.

Recently there was a new trend with club teams travelling abroad to engage other teams in friendly competitions but the latest such trip last year ended in an ugly fiasco and the sport is still to recover from the fall out.

The Linden Amateur Basketball Association has held its AGM and according to reports the GABA will also hold elections for office bearers sometime soon.

Is it too much to ask the ruling body for basketball in Guyana, the GABF, to follow the examples of its sub-associations and to get its house in order?

Sportscope thinks not!