Belize National Basketball Team loses appeal

We begin tonight’s newscast with a breaking news from Geneva and it’s not good news, certainly, it is not what was expected. Late this afternoon, a decision was handed down in the case of the Belize Basketball Federation versus FIBA in which the federation was challenging the nationality of certain members of the Belize Team who won silver in the August COCABA games in Cancun. Word is that the Belize Team lost its appeal. This is notwithstanding the stellar performances of the team that beat all of Central America and lost to Mexico in the last seconds of the game. In the eighteen page judgment signed by Doctor Ulrich Haas, it says that the evidence furnished by the B.B.F., did not convince the Chairman “with the certainty that the acquisition of Belizean nationality was finalized in every respect before the players’ respective sixteenth birthdays. For this reason the Appeal must be dismissed as unfounded. FIBA also ruled that since the BBF did not succeed with its requests in this case, it must bear the costs of the proceedings. Belize Laws state that a person born outside Belize on or after Independence Day shall become a citizen of Belize at the date of his birth if, at that date, his father or mother is a citizen of Belize. That was the argument used to defend the players who were born outside of the country. But FIBA rules are bound to Swiss Law and it is in Swiss Law that was used to aid in the determination of FIBA’s decision, not Belize’s constitution. FIBA laws dictate that a player must have attained his nationality by the time he was sixteen, and since they felt that the certificates of affirmation of Belizean Nationality were given after the age of sixteen, then they can’t play. But Herbert Allen, Dakin Braddik, Charlie Burgess and Kyron Stokes did play and the team won silver. We’ll have more on this story on tomorrow’s newscast.