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By Eddie G. Alinea, Contributor
FORMER Basketball Association of the Philippines
President Go Teng Kok lambasted FIBA Secretary-General Patrick
Baumann for causing the relief of BAP Secretary-General Graham Lim
from the youth commission of the international federation.
Go, the athletics chief who was recently elected
president of the Philippine Karatedo Federation, took Baumann to the
task for not giving Lim the benefit of due process before booting
the Filipino official out of the FIBA youth commission.
In a letter dated May 22, 2008, and sent to the
FIBA secretary-general, Go pointed a finger at Baumann for acting in
cohorts with what he called “pseudo-Filipino basketball leaders”
who are in the sport merely to protect their business interest over
the welfare of the sport.
“I have been involved in my country’s sports
affairs, officially or otherwise, [for] nearly two-thirds of my life
but I have never seen injustice committed in this manner against a
true sportsman, who has dedicated his life and resources for the
improvement of basketball,” Go said in his letter.
“The absence of due process in this instant
case diminishes, if not eradicate, the hope for fair play which is
the heart of our involvement in sports. To think that this is how
FIBA, one of the largest international sports organizations,
resolves issues even makes it more unpalatable,” he argued.
Go also insinuated that racial discrimination
may have something to do with it.
“There is no determining the motivations of
this high-handed act but it is my personal assumption that someone
yielded to the request of some BAP-SBP individuals who argue that a
Filipino with Chinese blood is not fit to work with self-proclaimed
elites.”
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