Rule change will affect us
KEVIN ALEXANDER, head of Jamaica’s f emale basketball delegation to next month’s Commonwealth Games, said the sudden rule, which only allows for one naturalised player to compete at the tournament instead of the initial three, will greatly affec t the countr y ’s chances of doing well at the championships.
Alexander told The Gleaner in an interview yesterday, that they were first told by the organisers that they would be allowed to use unlimited amount of naturalised players at the tournament.
However, he said after they submitted the list players, which includes three such players, they where then informed by the organisers that they could only have one on the team.
“On Sunday we got an email from the organisers to say that we would only be allowed to play one naturalised player and that has impacted on the team because the team is not going to be as strong as we wanted it to be,” said Alexander.
“This means that only one of the three players that we have can play.
We would have been stronger if we have all players going because these are people that have been playing in leagues overseas and are professional players and they also have a lot of experience,” Alexander said.
DISAPPOINTED
“The players are disappointed because they were planning to go to the Commonwealth Games and they have been training hard and they have put plans in place and so for this to happen is really disappointing for them,” he said.
He added:”Tickets would have been bought already, gears would have been ordered already and travel arrangements made for these people to come here and move to Australia and so all of that is additional cost for us.”
Alexander stated that despite the disappointment he still expects the team to do well at the tournament.
“There is no ill feeling because at FIBA tournaments we are only allowed one naturalised player and so we know the rules, but the problem is the amount of time that they took to come back to us to say we can only play one, but I am still confident that we will be very competitive at the tournament,” Alexander said.