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More basketball controversy brews… GABF, NSC bicker over boards
By Edison Jefford
A DEFINITE SAFETY HAZARD!!! This mammoth and dangerous crack that forms a semi–arc from the bottom of this basketball backboard to above the ring on the northern end of the Burnham Basketball Court poses a serious safety hazard for players where a dunk or lay–up could cause the fibre glass to collapse.
Finding amicable ground seems to be the most difficult resolution to mediate between the strained relationship of the national basketball federation and the sports commission after a new row surfaced over ownership of basketball boards. A reliable and confidential source, who requested anonymity, informed Kaieteur Sport in a brief interview yesterday that the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) and National Sports Commission (NSC) are at odds again.
According to the information, the Georgetown sub–association had written the federation requesting access to one of two new basketball backboards to replace a badly damaged northern backboard on Burnham Basketball Court.
However, when the President of the Georgetown association, Trevor Rose established the necessary contact with administrative officer of the NSC, Gervy Harry, he was apparently told that the boards cannot be removed from its location.
The NSC has direct responsibility for the management of national sport venues including the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall and National Gymnasium. Protocol dictates that Rose was acting accordingly when he contacted Harry.
“Harry told Rose that the federation had written the NSC and they said that the boards are not the property of the federation but the NSC,” the informant told this newspaper. Harry was speaking on behalf of the commission.
According to investigations, two new basketball boards are lodged in the control room of the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall since 1992. The backboards were brought into Guyana for the hosting of the Caribbean Championships in 1994.
When this newspaper visited the Sports Hall to verify if the boards were indeed lodged at the indoor facility, manager of the venue, Basheer Khan, indicated that it was beyond his function to allow this newspaper to see the equipment.
Rose had gone the route of attempting to procure the lone board because of the safety risk that the badly broken northern board on Burnham Court poses. Players are genuinely in danger when they perform at that end of the court.
“The GABF said that they don’t have a problem with replacing the bad board but Harry is saying that the NSC needs to see a receipt. The federation told Rose that they have such a receipt for the boards at the Sports Hall,” the source said.
It was not clear how the question of ownership of the boards was raised in the situation at present.
From information, it seems as though there is an undercurrent that is known to be active between the federation and the commission.
The two groups had failed in the past to work together on the national development of the sport that needs such collaboration.
The Inter-Guiana Games and the imminent Caribbean Championships were not exempted from controversy.
Those two international events desperately required collaboration between the GABF and the NSC but the former was strategically sidelined on both counts.
The difficulties of the federation in such matters are not necessarily unusual.
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