Team Belize goes on in winning, in spite of disqualification

(Courtesy of Channel 5 Belize) After having destroyed Team Nicaragua 97-67 in Day 1, the Belizean National Basketball Team demolished Guatemala 101-64 in Day 2 of COCABA Championship, but these two 30-plus wins will not be so useful. In fact, FIBA America officials disqualified Team Belize and removed it from the FIBA offiicial Cocaba website after finding that almost half of the players in roster were not eligible to play. Answered about the FIBA decision, Enrique Basulto, President of COCABA, stated: 'The situation with Belize is that they turned in documents to FIBA America that had six players that needed to be revised by FIBA International. Based on this information, it was not clear whether they are players from Belize, by birth specifically. FIBA has a rule regarding nationalization, which states that each country can select one player with a questionable nationality status and that is what we told the Belizean team. There are no sanctions that will be put in place against Belize. This is just a matter of rules and procedures. Teams that play with players that FIBA has not approved, will play as part of invitational matches. They will not count officially for the tournament. We need to review the case of Belize. The Federation needs to pay close attention to what has happened and work closely with the Central American organization so we could address these problems regarding documentation and the lack of organization by the Federation.' Basulto also said that Team Honduras were disqualified along the same lines as Team Belize and its games too will be considered as 'exhibition games' during this competition.