The FIBA gamble

Something is seriously wrong inside FIBA, if the way they’re treating the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas is any indication. There has obviously been some backroom maneuvering going on, to impel the change in treatment of a supposedly accredited and recognized national association.

FIBA formed a “special commission” to look into the matter after continuous communication emanating fro the Basketball Association of the Philippines. The special commission, made up of FIBA secretary-general emeritus Borislav Stankovic, former FIBA president Dr. Carl Men Ky Ching and legal counsel Ken Madsen will meet with representatives of both organizations in Geneva starting today.

It is curious that FIBA supposedly never communicated with SBP to verify or refute the charges made by the BAP. This alone indicates a bias on the part of the international federation (IF). Clearly, there’s something going on. Even the composition of the special commission tends to be sympathetic to the BAP, with Ching known to be close to BAP leadership. Obviously, BAP has done a lot of spadework in earning the sympathy of FIBA.

There are still, however, several questions regarding how FIBA is going about this so-called investigation. Firstly, why are they holding talks in the vacuum of Geneva? Why not send an investigating team to the “scene of the crime” here in the Philippines, if they really want to know what is going on? If they really want to give everyone a fair shake, why not talk to all the basketball stakeholders on the ground, where all the action is? Isn’t that usually how investigations are done? Even if they talk for days in Switzerland, it will all be second-hand information, won’t it? Here, they can meet with the PBA, PBL, UAAP and NCAA as much as they want to satisfy all their queries.

This alone already casts doubt on the sincerity of FIBA to mete out an even-handed decision on the matter.

Secondly, why not ask SBP to respond to all the allegations of BAP?

This means that they have already given weigh to BAP’s accusations, like listening to a crybaby claiming it has been bullied without getting the other kid’s side. Anyone can claim the SBP is violating any agreement. It looks shallow on the part of FIBA not even to bother getting both sides of the story before even wasting resources to “resolve” what could actually be a non-issue.

Third, in actual fact, FIBA should refer the matter to SBP in the first place, since the IF already recognized SBP last year. Why the sudden change? Why is BAP suddenly on equal footing with SBP? Sounds like a set-up, doesn’t it?

There are a few scenarios that may come out of the next two days’ meetings. First, FIBA could find nothing wrong in the Philippines, and tell BAP off. Given the circumstances and the background of the personalities involved, this is highly unlikely to happen. On the other hand, FIBA could suspend the Philippines again because of the brouhaha raised by the displaced basketball officials. Given the gains of the past year, this will probably not happen, either.

A third, and very scary proposition is for BAP to be given a more substantial say in how basketball is run in the Philippines. BAP already had the audacity to make demands of SBP even before the meetings took place. Honestly, all this posturing does not look good for them, either. This smug sense of entitlement is what has been inimical to the interests of sports in general in the first place. Given the track record of BAP, give them an inch, they’ll take a yard.

Imagine what they’d do if you gave them a yard. At the unity congress held the other year at the Dusit Hotel in Makati and attended by FIBA secretary-general Patrick Baumann, where was BAP secretary-general Graham Lim and other BAP officials? Lurking away from the cameras, staying in the background while everyone was focusing on the agreement being forged between all stakeholders. That was already a sign that they didn’t have the full intention of going along with it. Their actions since then have borne this out.

It also doesn’t look good for FIBA to be so easily swayed with only half the story skewed towards an antagonists’ favor. Obviously, something is going on, and it doesn’t look good for basketball in general. As I’ve said before, a lot has already been done by the SBP, and basketball is flourishing again. The current SBP leadership has gone to great lengths and great expense to revive the ailing sport locally and internationally. Now, we have long but plausible shot at making the Olympics for the first time since 1972, and a medium-term basketball program that does not include PBA players, something the BAP was not able to accomplish in its long years in power. What the BAP leaders are hoping will happen is that the SBP leaders will lose the taste for all the infighting and just drop everything altogether.

After all, it isn’t even their job. Then where will we be?

The BAP will not be satisfied until they have everything they once had, and if you recall, it was a stagnant, half-dead basketball scene in the Philippines, run like a fiefdom by oligarchs with their own agenda.

Do we still want that?