Thursday, June 07, 2007 Cesafi: Nothing wrong with UV’s actions By Marian C. Baring Sun.Star Staff Reporter
NO rules were broken.
University of the Visayas’ acquirement of Fil-Am player Gregory Fuentes-Slaughter while the University of Cebu was still recruiting the player may be viewed as inappropriate, but for the Cebu Schools Athletic Association (Cesafi), the school had acted above board.
UV allegedly offered Slaughter a whooping amount of monthly allowance for him to jump from the University of Cebu’s yard to UV, on top of other perks.
“No one admitted about that amount. But there are no rules against it. What UV did is done in accordance to their recruitment policies,” said Cesafi commissioner Felix Tiukinhoy.
Slaughter was tapped to play for UC, but technically, he still has not enrolled and therefore was up for grabs.
“Whatever the agreement is between the athlete and the university, remains between them,” he added.
Potential
“What a school does to get a player, diskarte na na sa school,” he added.
Tiukinhoy added that he understands UV’s aggressive recruitment to get a player with huge potentials.
“UV does not need to reinforce the team for local competitions, because they have enough manpower. But they need Slaughter for Manila teams. They need to have a strong lineup,” Tiukinhoy said.
Pride
Tiukinhoy also said that UV has always prided itself as a basketball champion that is why there is a need for them to maintain that name.
Before the Slaughter incident, UV also pirated another UC player, Harlou Villanil. This scenario, however, is contained in the Cesafi rulebook. Once a school gets a player from another Cesafi-member school, the player needs to have a residency of two years before he can play for the new team.
UC head coach Rhoel Gomez was disappointed, but UV head coach Elmer Boy Cabahug maintained that they just presented to him their offer and it was up to Slaughter to weigh his options.
According to Gomez, Slaughter was their only chance to have a better finish in the Cesafi basketball season since their other center, Junmar Fajardo, can’t play because of an injury.
UC’s lone achievement last year was when they stopped the undefeated run of UV during the first round. However, UV went on to win their sixth straight title.
