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If you have yet to hear, Singapore professional basketball team Singapore Slingers announced earlier today (Nov 20) that the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) “is unlikely to play for the foreseeable future”.
Singapore Slingers are our country’s first professional basketball club.
In 2009, the Slingers, along with six clubs from other ASEAN countries, including Malaysia and Thailand, came together to form the ABL. They played for nine consecutive seasons before the league’s suspension in 2019 due to the pandemic.
The ABL season finally restarted early this year, much to the joy of many basketball fans.
Unfortunately, their days of reuniting regional basketball were not made to last.
A statement from the Singapore Slingers read: “After 11 seasons and millions of dollars spent building a strong brand and lifting the standard of regional basketball, the ABL was informed by the FIBA that the league does not fit into FIBA’s future plans for basketball in the region. FIBA will be selective of which leagues it would support and allow moving forward. FIBA’s clear instructions to the regional basketball federations essentially denied the ABL a viable future.”
FIBA stands for the International Basketball Federation, the world governing association for basketball.
The Singapore Slingers also added that they have “spent the past two years trying to find a compromise with FIBA without success”.