Premier basketball sans giants
After a two-year hiatus, the Premier Division Basketball League gets underway at the Dhanmondi Wooden Floor Stadium today without six teams from the last edition, including two former champions.
The league will feature six teams out of which Josephites and Old DOHS were promoted from the first division league, which concluded two weeks ago.
However, some 100 players will be deprived of participation in the league, which has been named after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to mark his birthday centenary.
The exclusion of the six teams – Gregarious, Gladiators, Flame Boys, Greggs, Shawons and Eagles -- from the top-flight has caused controversy after Bangladesh Basketball Federation (BBF) allegedly did not respond to the appeal of those six clubs to defer the league due to the increase in coronavirus outbreak.
Now those clubs bear the risk of being relegated to first division as per the bylaws as the federation allegedly included the demotion clause despite promising those clubs verbally not to relegate this time if any club does not want to participate.
"We have been playing basketball for the last 25 years and became champions twice and runners-up three times in the last five editions held over the last 10 years. We wanted to play the league this time too and requested the federation to defer it a bit due to the rise in coronavirus infection, but they did not do so," Gregarious' general secretary Shahadat Hossain told The Daily Star.
"As basketball is a physical contact game, there is every chance of spreading the virus in case anyone gets infected during the league. Besides, it is also a bit of a problem to get players from schools, colleges and universities which are also now closed."
Flame Boys' general secretary Sayeed Ahmed said, "They are incompetent organisers, who don't want progress of basketball. They are holding a farcical league with six teams. Federation never provided any financial assistance to us; instead we invest a lot of money in basketball regularly."
BBF's executive committee member and defending champions Hornets' general secretary Ranjit Chandra Das said, "Those six clubs are not taking part in the league due to their inability to form squads, but they are using coronavirus as an excuse."
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