BAL tip-off put on hold due to virus

ORGANISERS of the Basketball Africa League were left with no other choice but to postpone this year’s inaugural season over safety concerns related to the coronavirus.

The Basketball Africa League was due to tip off in the Senegalese capital of Dakar on March 13.

The BAL, which is supported by the National Basketball Association (NBA), is a 12-team competition and the inaugural season was due to be hosted in five different cities around the continent, culminating in the finals, which were scheduled to be held in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

“Following the recommendation of the Senegalese government regarding the escalating health concerns related to the coronavirus, the BAL’s inaugural season will be postponed,” BAL president Amadou Gallo Fall said in a statement yesterday.

This week Senegal’s health officials announced that a second coronavirus case had been detected in Dakar. Senegal and Nigeria are the only two sub-Saharan countries to confirm cases of the coronavirus. In north Africa, Egypt and Tunisia have confirmed cases. The BAL was scheduled to host matches in Lagos and Cairo.

The prospect of players, officials and fans possibly contracting the disease, which is putting large parts of the northern hemisphere on lock-down, was too big a risk to take for the new league.

“I am disappointed that we are not able to tip off this historic league as scheduled but look forward to the highlyanticipated launch of the BAL at a later date,” Gallo Fall added.

The NBA has told players in the US to avoid ‘high fiving’ fans as it seeks to take precautions against the spread of the virus.

In a memo to the 30 teams in the league, the NBA offered 10 recommendations to players with hopes of decreasing risks of getting the virus – among them, not taking items such as pens, markers, balls and jerseys from autograph-seekers.

The BAL couldn’t say when it was likely to start the league, as it was awaiting advice from health officials.