by Sande Bashaija
Kampala
For 365 days, dazzling Ivan Enabu will not feature in the MTN-Fuba League yet his team is steadily sliding into relegation.
He is a darling to basketball fans due to his incredible dribbling skills and many will shed a tear or two for the Uganda Christian University (UCU) Canons star. His quality and past disciplinary record however couldn’t come into play as the Federation of Uganda Basketball Associations (Fuba) technical committee set out to punish him and three other players for engaging in an ugly brawl during a league game on September 6.
To the surprise of many, the usually humble Enabu fought with Falcons’ Sande Okot as his team went on to lose 65-83. “We looked at the gravity of the matter, did our investigations, involved several witnesses and scrutinized the referee’s report. All our findings pointed to one thing - the players in question are all guilty,” Fuba technical committee head William Musaazi told Daily Monitor yesterday.
Whereas Enabu and Okot will sit out for a full year, two other players that later joined the scuffle – Isaac Lugudde (Falcons) and Michael Mityero (UCU Canons) – have been handed a four-match suspension.
“Lugudde and Mityero showed an intention to fight but didn’t engage each other physically, that’s why they received a lighter ban. But the other two, we had no option but to invoke article 8.2 of the rules and regulations.” For failing to control the game properly, referees Edward Sendi and John Omondi have also been suspended for one month, pending review.
“It’s a deterrent measure, we want to make sure all our match officials are at their best every time they are on the court,” Musaazi noted. “They failed to do their job.”