Monrovia – A veteran former basketball player is calling for the quick intervention of the Ministry of Youth and Sports to save the popular sport from collapsing.
David Magic Wilson, who played for some of the best basketball teams in Liberia, including LPRC Oilers, Mighty Barrolle, NPA Pythons and Invincible Eleven (IE), called for urgent and quick intervention of the Sports Ministry to help save the game from collapsing because basketball has declined to one of the lowest levels. According to Wilson the decline is creating serious blow to the talents of the younger generations having passion for the game.
He emphasized that if the ministry doesn’t come in quickly help to bring the situation under control, there would be a total collapse of basketball in Liberia.
He blamed the failure of the present leadership of basketball of not following the ‘good leadership examples’ of the Gbour Wilson administration.
Wilson also acknowledged that because the LBA administration failed to put into place the proper mechanisms for the growth of the game, it has developed serious misunderstanding between some aggrieved stakeholders of the association and members of the Anderson leadership and that such misunderstanding had caused total breakdown of the game, too.
“If members of the Anderson administration were to work hand in hand with stakeholders of the game so that they all can help put into place the proper mechanisms for the growth of basketball, the game could have improved far ahead.”
He continued that currently most of the first, second and third division teams that started the association 2019 league have boycotted the big six competition of the league because according to them their players cannot play under the downpour of rain.h
“Those aggrieved members of the LBA made it clear to most of us as veteran basketball players that they straightly blamed the association’s leadership refusal to start the league during the Dry Season for the impediment the league is undergoing presently and so they all have decided not to play basketball under such deplorable condition,” he disclosed.
He elaborated that during their days as basketball players, Liberia was counted among the best and strong basketball countries in Africa and that they won so many international trophies because the game was up to standard and was controlled by people who had knowledge of basketball and at the same time they worked hand in hand with the stakeholders at the time.
Wilson added that it is degrading that the country’s basketball teams including the national team, the Lone Star, are now counted among the lowest teams on the continent when it comes to performance. According to him, they have become only participants in all of the continent’s major tournaments without winning a single trophy all because of the lack of the proper mechanisms that could help improve the game.