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FEATURE: Officials look for ways to fix the SBL's battered image

When the Chinese Taipei Basketball Association (CTBA, 中華籃協) fined Taiwan Beer coach Yen Jia-hua (閻家驊) NT$100,000 (US$3,030) for attacking a referee earlier this month, the nation's basketball fans also expressed their disapproval at Yen's behavior in an online forum.

Yen said he was enraged by what he saw as an unfair ruling issued by the referee.

In the game between Taiwan Beer and Yulon Dinos on Jan. 6, the referee ruled 40 seconds before full time that the Dinos' Chen Hsin-an (陳信安) had scored and that a Taiwan Beer player committed a technical foul. Chen got a free three-pointer, which helped the Dinos secure victory.

"He [Yen] beat the ref, and this is outrageous," wrote a basketball fan calling himself "Miehung" (滅痕) on an online forum. "He has absolutely no respect for the game and does not deserve to be a coach."

Another fan, Starry Sky (星空), had similar thoughts.

"It's OK to vent your anger," he said. "It's the way he vented his anger that I have a problem with."

Besides paying a fine, Yen was also banned from sitting on the bench for 10 games.

Yen first questioned the CTBA's authority to discipline a member of the Super Basketball League (SBL), but later chose to apologize for his misconduct.

"The games have always been controlled by referees," Yen said in a television interview. "While teams have tried to appeal, in the end the referees are believed to always be right."

In response, the association cited regulations proving it is the regulatory authority of the SBL.

The conflict between Yen and the CTBA is only one of many incidents overshadowing the fifth season of the SBL.

Before the season started, media reports speculated that some popular SBL players were involved with drugs. Then, on Jan. 12, three players from the dmedia Numen squad were allegedly involved in a case of assault.

A senior official with the Sports Affairs Council (SAC), who chose to remain anonymous, said in an interview with the Taipei Times last week that the questioning of the impartiality of the SBL's referees may have something to do with the fact that CTBA chairman Wang Jan-da (王人達) also owns the Dacin Tigers.

"Because of this, any ruling could be perceived as being questionable," the official said.

The official said problems are also caused by the fact that some players receive a salary every month, while others just get paid by the number of games that they actually play.

When the Chinese Basketball Alliance (CBA) ended 10 years ago, the SAC tried to resume competition in 2003 with four teams playing in a semi-professional tournament. Now, the SBL has seven teams.

The council originally planned to set up a development fund of NT$12 million (US$371,000) for the SBL. While the council had agreed to pay half of the sum, the teams were reluctant to pay the remaining NT$6 million. And while the council recommended that the license fees earned from television broadcasts of the games be used for the development fund, the teams simply took the fee and divided it among themselves, the official said.

The official was also pessimistic about the possibility of the CBA being re-established.

"It has been five years and nothing has changed," the official said. "Some of the crucial infrastructure, such as the drafting of new players, is still not there."

Wu Lung-shan (吳龍山), director of SAC's athletic sports department, said that the use of illegal drugs and fighting on the court simply exposed the shortcomings in the teams' management of their players.

CTBA vice president Steven Kao (高遠普) said the association had met with the management of all the SBL teams recently, and all sides had reached a consensus on some of the more controversial issues.

Kao said they were trying to turn those agreements into a set of formal written regulations, adding that they were trying to nail down some of the wording.

When asked how the SBL would be able to rebuild its damaged image, Kao said the teams would ask the players to sign an affidavit that they would adhere to a strict code of conduct both on and off the basketball court.
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