Saturday, January 10, 2009 – The Singapore Slingers learned early this morning that the team from India, Sathyabama Stars, scheduled to play in the Challenge Series tomorrow, would not be arriving.
Travel hiccups, immigration and clearance issues were given as the reasons. As a result the Slingers were left with no option but to cancel the Sunday game and commence immediately to reschedule a replacement match.
The Singapore Slingers are now working to replace this game with a high profile Filipino opponent and preliminary plans are to play next Saturday or Sunday.
"We are extremely disappointed with the organisers of the team and lack of professionalism in not fully informing us of the problems until this morning when we went to pick up the team. We will now be arranging for the 11th and final game of the Singapore Challenge Series to be played next Saturday or Sunday.
We will be honouring all tickets purchased for this game, including season tickets, for next week’s game. Tickets purchased through Sistic will be refunded if required. We really regret this unforeseen circumstance that led to the cancellation of the game and we’d like to thank all our supporters for their understanding," said Managing Director Bob Turner.
On a brighter note, details of the new ASEAN Basketball League will be announced shortly this month. If the league takes off, it will be the first professional sports league in ASEAN.
This isn’t the slingers fault.
From what I have seen the Slingers owners are very professional. There are teams in the NBL which are in trouble and unable to pay the players in full and on time. When the Slingers withdrew from the NBL, the first thing they announced was that they would honour player contracts in full and this was even before they had planned for the challenge series.
In this particular case, its the visiting team’s fault for not organizing their travel and immigration formalities on time. They should be monetarily fined or atleast asked to pay for any losses incurred by the Slingers due to this irresponsible behaviour.
The indian’s team no-show is a separate issue from the asean league.
there will be a press conference later this month about the league and i’ll post the news after i attend it.
so bball fans should watch this space.
Why does this not surprise me?
Odds are the ASEAN pro-league will never get off the ground.