Panlilio bats to end SEA Games farce

If SBP president and newly-elected FIBA Asia second vice president Al Panlilio has his way, Cambodia’s wanton naturalization of foreigners to beef up its national basketball teams in the recent SEA Games will be a thing of the past. As host nation, Cambodia used its prerogative to adopt a passports-only policy with regard to eligibility of imports in representing the country in the 11-nation conclave.

The rule allowed Cambodia to recruit five American mercenaries for its men’s 5-on-5 squad with three of them playing no relief en route to snaring the gold in men’s 3x3. Cambodia also brought in four Americans for its women’s 3x3 and 5-on-5 squads but they went home without a medal. The previous policy limited a national team to one naturalized player but had no max for athletes with heritage or bloodline for as long as they show passports, regardless of age when issued. That same rule was applied in the 2018 Asian Games by the Olympic Council of Asia and it’s presumed to be retained for the coming Hangzhou edition. FIBA, however, has a slightly different application as although it has the same limitation of one naturalized player for each country, foreign-born players are eligible as locals only if they received their passports before turning 16.

Naturalization is a tedious process in the Philippines. In Justin Brownlee’s case, he had to make personal appearances in Congress and Senate both of which went through three rounds of hearings before approving the citizenship. Cambodia coach Harry Savaya said he convened the American tourists only four days before the SEA Games began and they probably were naturalized virtually overnight. When Savaya recruited two of the five imports to play for the Orthodox team in the Jordan league last February, it didn’t seem like they had Cambodia in mind. Their final game for Orthodox was last April 30 or a week before the SEA Games began.

Panlilio attended FIBA Asia’s zone assembly in Kuala Lumpur last Monday and took the opportunity to raise the naturalization issue with FIBA secretary-general Andreas Zagklis and SEABA chairman Henry Nguyen of Vietnam. He had instructed Gilas team manager Butch Antonio to bring up the matter at the SEABA meeting during the SEA Games in Phnom Penh. Antonio said the consensus among SEABA member nations is there must be a standard eligibility policy for the SEA Games and can’t be changed on a host country’s whim. “FIBA’s eligibility rule is actually stricter than FIFA’s,” said Antonio. “We’re aware the host country has the privilege to set eligibility rules but we also want to preserve the integrity of the game. Maybe, we’ll tweak the FIBA rule to allow a limit of two naturalized players. Nothing is sure at the moment but we’d like SEABA to take a stand on this.”

Panlilio said Cambodia’s mass naturalization should not happen again in the SEA Games. “I raised it with Andreas personally but we will let the subzone or SEABA make proper recommendations to address the issue,” he said. “I met with SEABA chairman Henry Nguyen and he assured they will work on it soonest.” Panlilio said FIBA Asia officials closely monitored the basketball results in the SEA Games. “Yes, they all know and everyone offered congratulations,” he said. Panlilio will serve in the FIBA Asia Board for the 2023-27 cycle with president Dr. Kempareddy Govindaraj of India, chairman Yao Ming of China, first vice president Akram Halabi of Lebanon, finance chairman Abdullatif Al Fardan Al Uaimi, gender in minority member Xu Lan of China, FIBA Asia executive director Hagop Khajirian of Lebanon and six sub-zone representatives Yuko Mitsuya of Japan, Khoo Poo Thai of Indonesia, Tarif Koutrach of Syria, Abay Alpamyssov of Kazakhstan, Abhijit Sarker of Bangladesh and Dr. Ghassan Tashkandi of Saudi Arabia.