By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Pilipinas VisMin Super Cup organizers and committee will be handing a 1-million-peso fine and banishment to teams who will be proven part of ‘game-fixing’ in the league.
In the controversial game between the ARQ Builders Lapu Lapu City Heroes and the Siquijor Mystics, a total of 13 players and two coaches were kicked out of the league while six players and one coach were suspended.
Moreover, Lapu Lapu was penalized a total of 220,000 pesos with players involved in the controversy getting separate fines.
Spectators were suspicious of the game after players kept on missing wide-open layups while easy shots at the charity stripe consistently hit the backboard and missed the rim entirely, one of the most unusual settings to happen in a debuting professional league.
After a power interruption forced the game into intermissiont, League Chief Operating Officer Rocky Chan stepped onto the court and talked to both camps about how they were playing.
“There was already an issue during the game itself. Nag-brownout then I personally talked to both coaches to play the game the right way. I gave them a stern warning but the players continued to do unnecessary things on the court,” Chan said.
Despite the league COO personally talking to both squads, the unexplainable court behavior of both teams continued and became the sole reason why the game was called off during halftime.
“We hold ourselves and each of our players to a high standard, thus we will not tolerate these actions and we will enforce it by releasing a memorandum to all teams that we will be fining teams who do the same action in the future: a fine of P1,000,000 along with the expulsion from the league,” Chan said.
Chooks-to-Go president Ronald Mascariñas, one of the main sponsors of the league, hopes that this kind of actions won’t happen again.
COO Chan also made it clear that their MDC ball had nothing to do with the players missing badly from the free throw line after a game announcer surmised that the ball might have affected how the players shot the ball.
“This is a clear statement of the Pilipinas VisMin Super Cup. Any deliberate actions by any player and coach are not tolerated in this league. If ginagawa nyo po ito sa ibang liga, wag nyong gawin dito sa VisMin Super Cup,” Chan closed.
