Aspac ready to compete in first ABA league

JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta-based Aspac basketball club is ready to compete in the new, professional Asian Basketball Association (ABA) league, which will be staged for the first time on Aug. 13 in Tokyo.

Irawan Haryono, the club's owner and one of the association's directors, said Tuesday that Jakarta had been chosen to be one of eight host cities to stage the league matches.

"We're lucky we can perform in the first ABA league. If we had asked to take part in the league, we would have had to pay US$5 million," he said.

The other seven cities are Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Taipei, Manila and Kuala Lumpur.

Singapore and Bangkok, whose national teams are better than Indonesia's, were not chosen as ABA's first members.

Irawan said the ABA, which was set up on Nov. 23 in Hong Kong, showed the world that Asia had yet to be considered strong in basketball.

"Asian countries were not invited to compete at the McDonald Championship, which is staged annually, by inviting champions from America, Europe, Australia and Africa," he told Antara.

ABA will allow Jakarta to hire four non-Asian players but only two of them can be fielded in a match. Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong are also allowed to have four non-Asian players.

Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing are only allowed to have two foreign players with one foreign player allowed to be fielded. Manila and Taipei are allowed to have two players and both can be fielded in a match.

Aspac, which will compete in the league under the Jakarta club banner, will field veterans Muhammad Rifky, AF Rinaldo, Tri Adnyana, Victor Gideon Roring, Suko Daryono, Felix Bendatu, Cokorda Raka Satria Wibawa and newcomer Riko Haryanto.

Tjetjep Firmansyah, who helped take Indonesia to the top in the 1996 second SEABA (Southeast Asian Basketball Association) championship in Surabaya, will coach the team.

Former coach Abdurrachman Padang will replace Irawan as club manager. (yan)