That’s caused the team members understandable bitterness and this morning before the Guatemala matchup Keith swift spoke to the Captain and the Head Coach about it,
The Belize team was dominant yesterday – showing athleticism, quickness, great guard play and depth off the bench. A sweet victory but the actions of FIBA and the tournament organizers have left a bitter taste in their mouths:
Milton Palacio, Team Captain
“Bull...sorry, sorry about my language, but this is terrible, this is terrible, because you know, we had all our paperwork done months in advance. You know yesterday we didn’t come here and try to legalize players; we’re not using players from China, Japan or Africa somewhere, we’re using Belizean players, Belizean born, Belizean parents, Belizean descent players and, ah this is terrible.”
"You know it shows that they’re scared of us you know it shows that us playing yesterday and playing and the way we played, we’re the deepest team here, you know? All these other teams they know they’re in trouble, they know they gonna have problems qualifying and that’s the type of attitude we have”
Kevin Seroki, Head Coach
“Since Belize came here with a good team, now the FIBA federation that are running it here, maybe they’re scared of us, it looks so.”
It looks so on the official tournament website, where Belize’s name has been removed from the group, the schedule of games to be played and the result of the game was not posted.
Keith Swift
“They took off our name off the website there’s no mention of Belize. What does that mean for yesterday?”
Kevin Seroki, Head Coach
“In our hearts we beat the heck out of Nicaragua, you know? We consider that a victory we don’t know of it’s...they say we forfeited the victory or whatever...”
Keith Swift
“You won yesterday but Belize’s name was taken off the website, there’s no mention of our big victory yesterday.”
Milton Palacio
“Yeah, it’s terrible, but me personally I’m not a great website person or me looking at the internet you know I heard that it was taken off, it just shows that, it goes back to the fact they they’re nervous and a little scared of what we can do and how we looked yesterday. And I felt that if we had one by two points yesterday then it would have been okay, you know 'they’re fine.'”
And being made an outcast at the competition has only stoked this team’s competitive drive:
Kevin Seroki, Head Coach
“You know again, it sparked, put a little fuel to the fire, cause now, I think we wanna go out and kick everybody’s butt now”
Keith Swift
“If its your decision to make would the team continue playing if they refuse to award us the points and to recognize us?”
Milton Palacio, Team Captain
“110% we will. We’ll play just so that we can kick everybody ass just to show that we know why you’re scared, you know?"
And while they’ll do their work on the court, they’re looking to the Prime Minister to intercede with FIBA
Milton Palacio
“You know right now we’re just gonna do a couple phone calls, you know, they’re supposed to speak with Mr. Dean Barrow so hopefully so that can go through.”
Keith Swift
“When will a decision be made by the team?”
Kevin Seroki
”Well we’re hoping that the Prime Minister talks to somebody over at FIBA and they do what they are supposed to do this morning and hopefully get a decision.
But despite a call directly from Belize’s head of government to FIBA – the decision to rule against the eligibility of 7 players, stands.
Kevin Seroki
“It’s just disheartening a little bit and taking away from what our goal is. Obviously our goal is to qualify and win a gold medal. And we watched the other teams yesterday and we got a good chance to do that you know by watching the other teams yesterday.”
As we understand it, here’s how the call from the Prime Minister to the Secretary General of FIBA in Geneva Switzerland Patrick Bauman went. The PM explained that all the team members are Belizeans by descent, not naturalization. Bauman told him that FIBA understands that, but added that under FIBA regulations, that citizenship would have had to have been established before the players were 16 years old – and in the cases of 7 of them, it was not, says FIBA.
But, Belize’s Federation argument is that all these players had citizenship at birth, regardless of where they were born, they were born as Belizeans, with a right to citizenship once their parent or parents were Belizean.
That’s how the law is applied and interpreted in this country, but FIBA doesn’t see it like that. Strange though, that the roadblock is appearing mysteriously when now Belize has put together its most capable team. Nothing was said when many of the very same players played for Belize in the past – dating back to 1998 and as recently as 2006.
Tomorrow will bring major developments as Secretary General Garcia arrives in Cancun and FIBA is being asked to rule on the Belize appeal. More than that, Belize is also playing its biggest game. We’ll have it all tomorrow night.
