Last night, we told you that the Belize National Basketball Selection would withdraw from the Guatemalan tournament called "New Era of the Mundo Maya", which was organized by National Sports Federation of Guatemalan Basketball. The withdrawal is in protest of the Guatemalan Sports Federation's logo which boldly displays Belize as a part of Guatemala.
Well today, they arrived back in Belize after playing only one game -which they were urged to do in this jersey - which contains the offending logo. The national team members did not wear the jersey.
They were greeted on arrival by the Vice-President of the Belize Basketball Federation. Here's how he explained the decision to us and the coach also have us his reaction:
Charles Ellis - VP Belize Basketball Federation
"We got an invitation from the Guatemalan federation and we jumped on the opportunity because we are preparing for the Central American Games to held in Costa Rica the end of next week. This was a good opportunity for us to give our players some game time preparation and it was basically for free. All we had to do is get our way there, so we jumped on the opportunity and we went over
there. We over looked on the invitational letter that the federation sent to us that actually show Belize as a part of their map and after I was made aware of that situation I decided that at this time especially this heighten that we can't partake in a tournament in Guatemala showing Belize as part of their map."
Matthew Smiling - Belize National Team
"Last night I happen to call the vice president and he told me that all kind of stuff is happening in Belize and we better come home and I got up this morning and woke up the team and told them that we had to come back. I still don't really understand what happened. It does have an effect on the players. They really wanted to play. We were trying to use this tournament as a warm up tournament for the Central American Games."
Daniel Ortiz
"What sort of readiness do you think the team has for Central American Games?"
Matthew Smiling - Belize National Team
"I guess it's back to the drawing board now. I got to go back and do things that we were supposed to do this weekend but we can't get any official games played. We don't have any stadium to play in. A lot of people say a lot of things but when the time comes to step up to invest in the National Team nobody wants to do it."
Notably, there were three Belizeans playing on the Peten team.
The National team was hoping to use this tournament to prepare for the 2013 Central American in Costa Rica. The president of the Belize Olympic Association Hilly Martinez weighed in last night, before the team could be reached. He said, quote, "if we are unable to contact our team via phone or email, I recommend we drive to Peten and withdraw the team."
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