IM to decide Rommy's fate soon

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia Muda (IM) club is expected to decide to which club it will sell top player Rommy Chandra for the 2001 season, said Doedie Gambiro, the Indonesian Basketball Association (Perbasi) official in charge of the national basketball league (Kobatama), on Tuesday.

Jakarta-based IM has signed a transfer deal for Rommy with two clubs, Mahaka Satria Muda and Aspac Texmaco. IM has just lost its sponsorship deal with the giant textile group, Texmaco, which switched its sponsorship contract to the 2000 league champions Aspac of Jakarta last month.

"We asked IM, which is Rommy's original club, to decide to which club it will sell Rommy and cancel the other deal. Perbasi will formalize the decision," Doedie said.

"IM will have to face the consequences after the decision. Hopefully, Mahaka and Aspac can accept whatever the decision will be," he said after meeting with IM's chairman Al Hakim Hanafiah and executive chairman Priautama Tobing at Perbasi's office.

All 10 clubs which will perform in the 2001 league from March 23 to March 30 are required to submit their players' lists on March 9 at the latest.

Doedie said IM had received Rp 60 million (US$6,120) each from Mahaka on Jan. 31 and Aspac on Feb. 22. IM also issued a recommendation letter for Rommy to move to either of these clubs.

"One of the letters was issued under the terms of conditions with Texmaco, IM's former sponsor. But we in Perbasi did not know the content of the deal," he said.

IM had previously signed deals with players joining the team. But since 1997, the players signed contracts with the Texmaco group as the sponsor instead of IM.

Doedie said Perbasi acknowledged Rommy as IM's player and not Texmaco's.

"Under Perbasi's rule, a player belongs to the club which signs an agreement with him or her. Perbasi deals only with the clubs, not the sponsors. The deal between IM's players and Texmaco is legal, but such a contract is not valid in the league," he said.

He also admitted that Kobatama's rules needed more revision.

"Kobatama has not reached its ideal form. We only started to devise the rule after the league began, because at that time we only wanted to increase basketball competition," he said. (ivy)