Ahmadiyya Basketball League: Biggest Youth Tournament in Belize
The Ahmadiyya Muslim community also announced that it has the biggest youth basketball tournament in Belize. Its basketball league is a program that engages youth athletes in the discipline of the sport. Teams compete both locally and internationally in matches, and as we found out today, it has grown to now include fifty teams from across Belize and Mexico competing in the U-15, U-18, U-22 and the Open category. The seventh season started back on February sixth and will continue for three months, before it goes into playoffs and finals. Rodvern Lino is the Commissioner of the Ahmadiyya Basketball League Belize.
Rodvern Lino
Rodvern Lino, Commissioner, Ahmadiyya Basketball League Belize
“The Ahmadiyya Basketball League is a branch, humanitarian aspect from the Jama’at itself. And it is really something special to witness eight teams struggling to finish a season, now we are in our seventh season and we have forty-nine teams. Just today, I had to tell a team that we are really full. So it speaks volumes about the type of league we have and the vacuum that has been filled for our young people. We have been following our young people and actually created a relationship with them and now some of them are working, they are family men and they actually speak to us and tell us that they are happy that we were a part of their upbringing in their adolescent lives and took them to Mexico and the U.S. and give them some type of exposure. So it is something very special.”
Naveed Mangla
Naveed Mangla, President, Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at Belize
“It creates an opportunity for them to showcase their talent not only in Belize, but abroad too. I think about two years ago, we took a team from PG – eleven kids – and before we crossed the border, we asked them if they ever went to Mexico before and nine out of the eleven of them said that they never left PG before. Imagine that these kids living in PG spend about fourteen hundred dollars every week to come and play here. Then kids in Dangriga are doing different charitable work to raise money to come here. Teams from Mexico are coming. So this is something that I don’t think Belize has ever seen that through basketball, we are uniting the youth around the whole country. It started off with sixty, eighty kids and now we have six hundred kids.”
The tournament takes place every Sunday at the Mexico Sports Center nine a.m. to five p.m. Fans are not advised to attend as each team is only permitted twenty persons. Live streaming of the games can be viewed on the Ahmadiyya Basketball League Facebook page.
