Five teams have forfeited points after failing to show up for National Bank of Malawi Mo626 College Basketball competition’s Central Division preliminary round at Kamuzu Institute for Sports in Lilongwe on Saturday.
The teams are Natural Resources College (NRC), DMI Lilongwe, African Bible College (ABC), Bunda and Daeyang.
Basketball Association of Malawi (Basmal) General Secretary Peter Gomani said University of Lilongwe (UniLil) and Malawi Assemblies of God University (Magu) were the only teams that turned up for their matches and were awarded 20-0 wins.
Gomani said the five teams boycotted matches on the day because they believe that Magu and UniLil are featuring ineligible players in the competition.
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“They wrote us about the issue in the course of last week and we constituted a sub-committee to investigate the matter. However, the complaining teams wanted us to postpone the games until results of the investigations are out.
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“But we refused to do so because, according to Fiba rules, games are not supposed to be suspended when such matters arise and investigations are being made.
“If, indeed, the players under investigations are found to be ineligible, all the games in which they were featured will have points forfeited and their teams fined accordingly,” he said.
Gomani said besides forfeiting their points, the boycotting teams will also pay fines.
ABC Coach Jeff Kumwenda said he had heard about the allegations from his players but declined to shed more light on the issue, referring us to his captain Blessings Khawo, who was out of reach.
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However, NRC Coach Phillip Kamwendo said they failed to honour their fixture because of administrative challenges.
“Our players have gone on holiday alongside the rest of the students here. We had requested management to consider making special arrangements to continue accommodating the players until they finish their matches but nothing worked out. So we are unable to continue playing in this competition,” Kamwendo said.
