In light of the news that has been on the airwaves due to Hurricane Richard, it would have made a nice change to see Belize’s National Male Under-15 basketball team going off for Chiapas, Mexico, on Monday of next week. Having attained the silver medal in the COCABA games, they were set to compete in the Centro Basket Tournament which was scheduled from November 1-6. Amandala has been informed, however, that all the hard work that the team has put in to practice, prepare, and of course, fund-raise to be able to go, has been sidelined because the tournament has been cancelled. The reason given to them was due to “financial constraints”.
Paul Thompson, president of Belize Basketball Federation (BBF), and Matthew Smiling, National U-15 head coach, called a small press conference this morning at the Belize City Center to inform the public about the tournament’s cancellation. Thompson read the contents of the letter that they received via email:
Thompson read, “Dear friends, I hereby regret to inform you today we receive a notification from the Sports Director of Guanajuato City, Mexico, informing that they won’t be able to host the Centrobasket U-15 Championship 2010. For this reason the event is cancelled; CONCECABA will determine shortly with respect to the teams that will participate in FIBA America’s U-16 Championship in 2011.”
Smiling said that the team is disappointed that the tournament has been cancelled. He said that they were all looking forward to it and have done a lot of leg-work to get prepared. He said that they are a very talented team and he will continue to do his best to try to keep them sharp by arranging games for them. They are all hopeful to compete in FIBA’s U-16 Championship games in 2011.
Since the Centro Basket tournament has been cancelled, the federation is hopeful that Belize will be one of the three teams to advance to the FIBA U-16 Tournament. They were to use the now-cancelled tournament to advance, but it now rests on CONCECABA’s decision.
(Ed. Note: According to Wikipedia, FIBA – International Basketball Federation; FIBA Americas – A zone within FIBA which contains the 44 FIBA Federations located in the Americas; COCABA – Confederation of Central American Basketball Associations; CONCENCABA – Confederation of Central American and Caribbean Basketball Associations; Centro Basket – A FIBA sponsored basketball tournament for countries in CONCENCABA. )