On Wednesday 7th February, Royal Holloway women’s basketball hosted Chichester in the final game of the season. The game was a comfortable victory for the Holloway girls, blowing out the visiting team 62-41, the culmination of a season’s hard work.
Following the game Chichester realised the result meant relegation and began complaining that the game had been unfairly scored by the table officials. The next day University Of Chichester lodged an appeal with BUSA, attempting to claim the game on a technicality to avoid relegation.
In their appeal Chichester misled BUSA on numerous issues, falsely claiming RHUL had breached various rules and in some instances fabricating facts entirely. Despite this, BUSA took the decision to uphold the appeal, awarding Chichester a walkover and 3 points for the win as well as deducting Holloway 3 points resulting in RHUL being relegated to the lower division for next season.
BUSA’s decision to uphold the appeal centred on the fact that Holloway’s table officials were unqualified, with BUSA rules stating all games must have two qualified table officials. However, those involved in basketball understand the impracticality of this rule, with the country’s governing body, England Basketball, simply not having enough registered on their books to meet BUSA’s demands of two qualified table officials for all Premier, tier 1 and tier 2 matches, let alone the hundreds of other league’s around the country that also specify this requirement. It is given that the home team will simply provide two competent individuals to manage the score table. Chichester claimed the table was unqualified and highly incompetent, that they cheated Chichester out of some 21 points and ultimately upset them to such a degree that they lost the game, despite not raising these concerns with the referees at any point during the course of the game. Such allegations are entirely false and both highly qualified and experienced referees at the game confirmed their confidence in the table officials.
To emphasise the absurdity and unsporting nature of Chichester’s appeal, no game played in the League this season had two qualified table officials present, not even when Chichester hosted Holloway back in November when both their table officials were unqualified, as confirmed by England Basketball.
Chichester deceived BUSA on numerous issues, stating that the score sheet had only been signed by one referee despite both referees signatures clearly visible on the score sheet, validating the game’s true result. Chichester quoted two further rules in their defence but it appears BUSA did not take the time to ascertain the rules as neither had been breached.
Before the game Chichester failed to supply the score table with a list of player names and numbers for the score book despite being asked to, and so the table simply recorded each of the player’s numbers as they entered the game as is the correct procedure outlined by the world governing body, FIBA. Following the game Chichester refused the referees’ requests to supply the table with player names to accompany the numbers and even used this in their appeal as further evidence of the incompetence of Holloway’s table, despite FIBA rules clearly stating that it is the coach’s responsibility to supply the score table with a list of player names and numbers. Whether Chichester’s refusal to supply the table with the required information was due to fielding ineligible players remains unknown, but the fact remains that Chichester violated no less than five rules themselves on this matter and yet BUSA seemingly deemed this unimportant.
If all teams were to behave like this the BUSA basketball leagues would simply cease to exist, as every game would be claimable on technicalities regardless of their outcome. Chichester also suggested to BUSA that the result was clearly wrong as they had won the previous meeting by 14. Such statements angered Holloway’s team coach Julian Bailes, “For Chichester to assume that the previous meeting’s result has any bearing on this game is arrogant and disrespectful. The team have worked all season long, getting to a point where they are now beating teams they had previous lost to and competing with the best in the league. We lost to league champions Kent by 51 first time around, and just 6 at Kent just two months later. In fact the team has an average 32 point improvement between playing teams first and second time with Kent being our only loss since December in BUSA or ULU league and cup competition. Chichester came here expecting to get a comfortable win and they got beat convincingly. The fact that they took the loss so badly and made such an unsporting and fictitious appeal is disappointing to say the least”.
For the University of Chichester to base and appeal on such a technicality that is not strictly adhered to by any University in the country, themselves included, is deplorable. The fact that BUSA took the decision to uphold the appeal against the judgement of both match referees, support for Holloway’s case by every other University in the league and further impartial input from expert sources is astonishing. Perhaps BUSA were unaware as to the extent to which Chichester misled them in their appeal but it is not too late for them to rectify this situation and reward the most important aspect of any sporting event, the spirit of the game.
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