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On February 14, the CBA (Chinese Basketball Association) held a media conference in Beijing. The director of the CBA League Office, Zhang Xiong, indicated at the conference that the CBA plans to spend 8 to 12 years building up a professional team of referees and to improve their professional skills and management abilities.

In the recent game between Jiangsu Tongxi and Jiangsu Kentier, the owner of Jiangsu Kentier, Cheng Guangchuan, dissatisfied with the refereeing of the game, shouted in public that Chinese basketball was hopeless. This dramatic intervention exposes the focal problem about the deficiencies of CBA referees.

Zhangmakes the point that dealing with the problem of poor referees is one of the main priorities of the CBA League Office. He also reveals that with the foundation of the CBA League (Beijing) Sports Co., Ltd, to build a professional referees team will be one of the issues that takes precedence in the company’s future work. It is planned to spend 8 - 12 years building a team of professional referees for the CBA and also to achieve a balance between referees of different age groups.

The dissatisfaction of the Jiangsu Tongxi owner reveals the deficiencies of the CBA’s current management mechanism, witha lack ofpunitive measures for investors who violatethe rules of the CBA league. Zhangindicated that the upcoming shareholders meeting will study measures to deal with clubs quitting the CBA league. It looks likely that they will impose significant fines on clubs that maliciously damage the interest of the CBA league, or draw up relevant measures to forbid similar events happening again.

Source: Tencent Sports

Proofread by Sean O Diobhilin