Lina line

By Al S. Mendoza

I MAINTAIN that Joey Lina remains the key to ending the country’s basketball impasse.

I say that again in the wake of recent calls to make Rudy Salud referee the POC-BAP rift in a last-ditch bid to toss the ailing sport back to the world stage.

But judging from Fiba’s actions the past two years or so, the Fiba (World Basketball Federation) will only lift the Philippine suspension if Lina’s BAP (Basketball Association of the Philippines) is restored to the good graces of the POC (Philippine OlympicCommittee).

The Fiba doesn’t need a Salud, or even a Joe de Venecia maybe, to lift the Philippine suspension.

For reasons known only to the Fiba, Lina, the BAP president, has always been the fair-haired boy of the Fiba.

Fiba secretary general Patrick Baumann has made that known to us many times over.

“Without Joey Lina in any basketball body in the Philippines, the Philippines will remain suspended,” Baumann told a Philippine delegation in Seoul last March.

I was part of that delegation which presented to Baumann a new, Lina-less cage body called Pilipinas Basketball.

Last week, a similar delegation met up again with Baumann, this time in Saitama, Japan, site of the ongoing World Basketball Championships. Lina went there, too, but in his own personal capacity.

Again, Baumann reiterated his stand to them: No Lina or no BAP, the Philippine suspension stands.

Flashback: Last year, Baumann suspended Philippine basketball from all Fiba-sanctioned tournaments. This was a reaction to the expulsion of the BAP by the POC. The POC had expelled the BAP for reneging on a contract stipulating that a POC-appointed body would conduct basketball affairs in the country.

In explaining its decision to suspend the Philippines, the Fiba said that expelling a Fiba member (BAP) would set a bad precedent in the world basketball community.

The suspension triggered the scrapping of basketball in the 2005 SEA Games held in Manila last December.

Salud said he would accept the position as a “go-between” in the POC-BAP rift if his doctors would allow him, and if the POC and BAP would abide by what he decides on to break the impasse. Salud now wears a pace-maker after he had undergone a heart surgery on February 14.

The suspension could get lifted immediately if Lina joins Pilipinas Basketball unconditionally. That was Baumann’s wish from the very beginning – have Lina in any new cage body to be formed.

A second option to effect the lifting of the suspension is for the POC to readmit the BAP into the Olympic family. 

Either of the two happening is almost improbable, given the un-malleable character of Lina and the unbending stance of the POC. 

Lina has been that uncompromising as to see him dump the BAP in favor of Pilipinas Basketball. And the POC has been steadfast in not reversing itself and restoring the BAP to the Olympic family.

Which puts us back to the question once more: What does the Fiba really want, readmit Philippine basketball into its fold   without any conditions, or lift the Philippine suspension if Lina becomes part of Pilipinas Basketball or, if the BAP is thrust back to the POC roster?

Your guess is as good as mine.

 

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